


here, we are found

by tigerlo



Series: I waited (and you came) [2]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, Here's the season two piece, Introspection, Smut, YES I SAID SMUT, also yay, canon adjacent, canon fill-in scenes, even though they're really well on their way on the love thing by this point, waverly's pov, yay!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 21:56:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12639978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlo/pseuds/tigerlo
Summary: She feels different, now. Changed.Nicole's hand in her own, itsettlesthings.orA deeper look into seasontwofrom Waverly's POV as she falls in love with Nicole.(part two of a two-part character study)





	here, we are found

**Author's Note:**

> Here's part two team! What a ride this has been, huh? Honestly, I'm chomping at the bit to get stuck into season three now...
> 
> A quick note before we start this piece re. Gooverly. 
> 
> For the first part of the season, Waverly is obviously possessed and we know that even though Waverly says she’s in control when she’s around Nicole, she’s not actually _all the time_. 
> 
> For the purposes of this, though, you can assume that when I’m writing Waverly, it’s her; either 100% in control of her own faculties, or in her own head, and never the demon talking. 
> 
> This was a very considered choice for me, because I’m so conscious of things like consent and being in control, and I didn’t want to write as Gooverly because this is Waverly’s story, and not the Mikshun's, so we get Waverly while the demon is there, but only ever _our_ Waverly’s consciousness. 
> 
> Also, you’ll notice I don’t completely rehash their first time, just like I didn’t with Nicole’s POV (although I actually cover it in a lot more detail than I thought I did). This is because I’ve already written two very thorough fics on that particular scene (so you should go and read those if you haven’t already), and I wanted to spend time on other things/scenes instead. 
> 
> That's enough from me for now. A massive enormous thanks to @iamthegaysmurf for beta-ing this for me. Again, I know this is about a million times better for your incredible series knowledge, friend! x
> 
> Enjoy!

-

  
  


_ beginning _ . 

part two. 

  
  


-

  
  
  


It begins simply; so simply Waverly doesn’t even realise anything is wrong until it’s  _ much _ too late. 

  
  


-

  
  


Waverly feels different. 

 

Not  **really** different, just  _ different _ . 

 

And she doesn’t know when it began, cannot pinpoint one single moment accurately beyond the boundary archway. She felt different after they went to the archway. 

 

The archway where Willa….

 

She knows she felt one way before and ever so slightly different after, but she doesn’t know what happened, cannot remember what triggered the change, only that it’s there. Like a grain of sand in her shoe. So small she thinks she’s crazy half the time, but  _ there _ . 

 

She doesn’t say anything, not to Wynonna or to Nicole because they’ve been through enough. Because Nicole has a bruise the size of Waverly’s hand on her ribs where her sister tried to kill her, and Wynonna has the weight of another death on her shoulders, and it’s enough. 

 

They’ve both been through enough. 

 

And this isn’t anything serious, she has no proof it is, and for all Waverly knows, it could be completely benign. It could be a manifestation of new love because she’s never been in love before. She doesn’t know what it’s like, or what it’s supposed to feel like. 

 

People say love does many things, right? It makes you different and impulsive and it’s mood-changing and day-breaking and it makes you crazy even. 

 

It makes people crazy. 

 

That’s what Waverly’s heard, anyway. 

 

Maybe that’s it. It’s love. 

 

Nothing serious. 

 

Nothing to be  _ worried _ about. 

  
  


-

  
  


The bloom on Nicole’s ribs is fading, but Waverly’s guilt is not. 

 

Because she didn’t fire the gun, but she may as well have. Her blood did. Her kin. 

 

Well, as far as Waverly knows anyway, but maybe not if there is any truth in Bobo’s words. 

 

She hasn’t opened that box again yet in her head, and while part of her wants to say it’s because it doesn’t matter, because she knows Bobo is full of mistruth and manipulation and it was only a way to further shatter them as a family, another part of her thinks differently. 

 

Another part thinks there could be some truth to it. 

 

Because she’s always felt like Wynonna’s sister, but honestly, she’s never really felt completely like an Earp. 

 

There are a hundred reasons why, but there’s one that’s kind of stood out a head above the others, because the darkness that has wrapped it’s hands around her sister’s neck, and her father’s, hasn’t ever really touched her. 

 

She’s always had light in her blood instead of black, even when the world feels like it’s falling apart around her and it’s suffocating her family. It’s always been held at bay by something inside her. 

 

Until now. 

 

And maybe that’s what this thing is, maybe it’s just her damn destiny as an Earp, maybe it’s her birthright coming to claim her with dark wings. Because the heir inherits Peacemaker when they come of age, so why wouldn’t the other siblings inherit the darkness, too. 

 

She might not be darkness, not yet, but it’s nipping at her heels like a starving hound, and she’s more safe than not, for now, she thinks, but Nicole very nearly wasn’t. 

 

The bruise is fading, but the stormcloud in her chest isn’t, and she wonders how long she can wait,  _ should _ wait, before she opens herself up for Nicole to see. 

 

Because what if this is it, if this is what she’s destined to be like for the rest of her life. She knows already that this is love, even if she hasn’t told Nicole yet. She knows her heart will beat hard for Nicole and she’ll reach for warm hands and red hair in the dark for the rest of her life, but she’s not so sure now that Nicole will want to do the same for  _ this _ version of her. 

 

A Waverly chased by shadow instead of light. 

 

Because she fell in love with a different Waverly, and this one, this new one, might not be enough for her.

 

Or it’ll be too much. 

 

The bruise is fading, but Waverly’s foreboding is not, because it feels like there’s a battle on the end of her fingertips, it feels like the morning before a war begins, only she doesn’t know what they’re fighting for yet. 

  
  


-

  
  


“When there are so many other things we could be doing.”

 

The darkness might be waiting at the edge of her vision, but her hunger for Nicole is alive and well and  _ pure.  _

 

They still haven’t been together yet, not properly, but Waverly can feel her skin tingling with the anticipation of Nicole, Nicole, N i c o l e, like it’s just on the horizon waiting for them to reach for it when it’s time. 

 

When they have time. 

 

Her hands slide around Nicole’s neck and their mouths move hot and ready, and she can feel the spring uncoiling in Nicole’s stomach as her touch brushes the underside of Nicole’s bare breast.

 

Nicole’s hands tighten around her waist, and Waverly can see the vision of a movement in her mind’s eye of Nicole picking her up, turning them and sliding her hands up the back of Waverly’s thighs as she hoists Waverly up on the table. 

 

She can see Nicole crawling on top of her, over her hips as her lips and teeth find Waverly’s neck like they had in bed last night, drawing her skin hard enough to leave the faintest, prettiest bruise, only this time they don’t stop when the pain in her ribs grows too great, instead they  **touch** . 

 

_ Finally _ . 

 

But the vision never comes through to fruition because the pain snaps in Nicole’s torso, and then Doc moves into the kitchen and the moment is over, the sprite gone with the cool wind outside that follows Doc’s heels into the house. 

 

Nicole’s gone too then, up and out of Waverly’s hands before she can close them and keep her, to make her stay. It doesn’t actually matter though because Nicole is alive in Waverly’s heart now, and that means she’s there even when she’s not, even though Waverly would far prefer warm thighs and a warmer mouth to cold air. 

 

“Which makes me the luckiest.”

 

Because she is. 

 

Because Waverly feels it. 

 

Nicole will be back, she’ll come when Waverly calls at night. 

 

For  _ now _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


It takes her a long time to realise, to admit, that anything is properly wrong. 

 

The demon is clever, it’s smooth, taking over for short periods of time so Waverly doesn’t notice gaps in her memory. Black holes where everything is just a  _ little _ hazy, but she can remember enough either side that she puts it down to distraction, to being preoccupied and not noticing things properly. 

 

It grows bolder though. 

 

It’s easier for Waverly to take control on the homestead, with the mineral to keep them safe buried deep in the ground, strong enough to give Waverly strength, but not enough to banish the demon or take its power completely. 

 

It gets harder to ignore and easier for Waverly to realise there’s something wrong because things start happening. 

 

She finds pocketfuls of anything that shines when she puts on a coat that only  _ she _ wears. She wakes and can’t remember half the day before or what she had for breakfast or why Nicole is suddenly quiet around her.  

 

She wakes in the field outside the house in the freezing cold, only she’s  _ not, _ and she should be because it’s almost freezing, but her blood feels like a furnace in her veins. 

 

Her moods change, she becomes sharper. 

 

She snaps at Nicole, and she’s furious at the demon later, much later when she’s just  _ her, _ because it could very well have broken them if Nicole wasn’t  _ Nicole _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


It’s not just her behaviour that’s strange though, other things begin to happen, too. 

 

She  _ dreams _ . 

 

She dreams of old worlds, of fire and rain as black as night, and shadows that speak and whisper and  _ hurt people, _ and she wakes in a cold sweat and doesn’t remember, not fully, but she knows something is very, very wrong.  

 

She doesn’t say anything though, because the demon grows stronger. 

 

It manipulates her. 

 

It convinces Waverly that there’s nothing wrong, that she’s just crazy. That she needs to keep her worry to herself because they’ll lock her up if she tells anyone, just like they did Wynonna. 

 

It convinces her that Nicole will leave her. 

 

And that’s what does it in the end.  _ That’s _ what makes her hold her silence and nothing else; fear of losing the woman she thinks she shares a soul with. 

 

She bites her tongue and tries to keep a track of things as best she can, of ways she knows that help her stay in control, that make the blank spaces in her memory smaller. 

 

And as much as she wants someone to come to her and shake the truth from her and ask her why her pockets are full of silver, she knows it’s paramount that they do not. She just needs someone to realise, though, to work on a solution. 

 

To save her, even though she doesn’t quite know what she needs saving from. 

 

Nicole realises, though, thank god, even if she and the others don’t act on it to begin with, and even if they don’t do anything straight away because Waverly is left with the demon’s thoughts sometimes, as dreams, and later,  _ after _ , she remembers. 

 

She remembers what it was planning, how far it would go to keep the secret within the confines of Waverly’s own body. 

 

She remembers that the results of a confrontation would have been catastrophic. 

 

The demon is clever, but there’s one thing that helps her pierce the darkness, that helps her hold on to the light. 

 

_ Nicole _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


The black spaces in her memory are bad enough, but that’s not even the worst the week brings her. 

 

Because Dolls is missing and Wynonna is broken, from his absence and their sister’s, too, and then Black Badge swoops in and starts a shit-fire a mile high and makes everything that much harder. 

 

Nicole is the bright beacon on Waverly’s horizon until she’s not, until something pushes her away and she turns cold in a way that Waverly’s really only experienced once before, in Nicole’s squad car, and it makes her blood run colder than Nicole’s turned back because this is what it could be like….

 

If…. _ if _ ….

 

She refuses to allow the thought to progress any more, though, because she will not for a  _ second _ entertain that idea. Because irrespective of whatever is winding it’s way through her body, Waverly will not stand the thought of actually losing Nicole for one minute. 

 

“Don’t shut me out.”

 

It’s a plea and a prayer and, god, it’s simple, and she knows she has to be careful because they’re in the station and there are other people around, but her voice almost breaks across the words because she needs Nicole to  _ see _ . 

 

She knows why Nicole’s mouth is turned in a hard line, because she’s upset, the same as when Waverly and her damn loose tongue had tripped over  _ just friends,  _ because Dolls deputised her before he went missing and she was in the fold, finally, only to have the ground taken from under harshly and suddenly after so long waiting for answers. 

 

It kills her because Nicole’s cold, but she’s hurt, too. Her eyes ache with it, and Waverly wants to slide her arms around Nicole’s waist and whisper soft things to her heart and her head and tell her  _ everything, _ but she can’t because Black Badge has a damn gag order over them, signed in their blood now, and there’s nothing Waverly can do. 

 

She hands Waverly a file, and she’s  _ mad _ , but Waverly can see the way Nicole’s body bends for her regardless, because it’s the same way Waverly’s searches, too, and it burns when it comes up short. 

 

Empty-handed. 

 

So Waverly steps back. She waits and she leaves it and she gives Nicole the space she needs and she lasts exactly half the day before she calls. 

  
  


-

  
  


“Hey, Wave,” Nicole says, picking up on the second ring. “Is everything ok?”

 

Her voice is a little chillier than normal, but the worry warms it, because things might be a little strained, but nothing will compromise Nicole’s concern or care for Waverly. 

 

“Yeah,” Waverly says a little dumbly, wishing vehemently that she’d thought this through before calling, so she had a line or a speech or something, but she’d been so desperate to call Nicole, to talk, that she’d dialled before she’d taken a breath. “Yeah, sorry everything’s fine. I can leave you to it if you need, I didn’t mean to bother you.”

 

“You’re never a bother, Wave,” Nicole answers softly, and Waverly could sigh in relief because that’s  _ her _ Nicole again. 

 

Because even though she’s still mad, and hurt, she’s still Waverly’s Nicole, especially if Waverly calls for her. “Never, ever a bother ok. Is everything alright, though? Is something up?”

 

“Uh, kinda, but maybe not,” Waverly says a little airily, because this thing with Bobo and the maybe lie that’s been making her feel sick is too tight in her chest now, and she needs to exorcise it. 

 

She needs to tell someone. 

 

“I know you’re probably still mad, but do you think you could come over? Maybe listen to me apologise for an hour and then I can tell you what’s going on?”

 

“Of course, baby,” Nicole replies and Waverly softens with an exhale that almost makes her cry, her body  _ warming _ at the word. “I get off in an hour, is that ok?”

 

“Yeah,” Waverly says and she can’t keep the sniffle out of her voice. “That’s great. I’ll see you soon?”

 

“You’ll see me soon,” Nicole says in affirmation, her voice mostly  _ Waverly’s _ voice again. 

 

“Thank you,” Waverly offers with a sad smile that she wishes Nicole could see because she wants Nicole to know how much she hates that this can’t be different, this secrecy bull crap. 

 

“Nothing to thank me for, ok?” Nicole says softly and Waverly can picture the expression on her face so clearly, the slant of her mouth and the tilt of her head and the reassuring glimmer in her eye. 

 

“Yeah,” Waverly replies with a sigh. “There really is. And for the sake of getting a head start, I’m really, really sorry, ok?”

 

“I know you are, baby,” Nicole says sadly. “And I know it’s not your fault, it’s just hard, ok?” 

 

“I know it is and I hate it and I….. I don’t want to do this now, but we’ll talk about this soon, ok?” Waverly promises, the apology strong in her voice. “You’ll come out to the homestead?”

 

“Sure,” Nicole agrees on the other end of the line. “I’m looking forward to it, Wave. I miss you.”

 

“I miss you, too,” Waverly says with a whisper, because they might have seen each other within the last day, but the distance between them makes it feel so much longer. 

 

She counts the minutes until Nicole arrives, watching out the window until she sees Nicole climb out of the car, still in her uniform. 

 

She has her spare gear bag in her hands though, which means she didn’t go home first, and that makes Waverly’s heart lighten a little because that says to her that maybe Nicole wanted to be here as badly as Waverly wanted her to. 

 

She has the door open in two seconds flat and she wants to throw herself into Nicole’s arms as soon as she’s within reach, but she doesn’t want to push herself on Nicole if she’s not ready for that closeness yet. 

 

She hangs back by the door instead, biting her lip with the effort of staying still, of not moving towards Nicole. 

 

“Hey,” Nicole says as she walks onto the porch. 

 

Her smile is a little tight and her eyes heavy at the edges with hurt, and it makes Waverly’s stomach twist with guilt, but she’s here, and that means everything. 

 

“Hey,” Waverly answers softly, holding against the doorframe, but reaching out a hand for Nicole’s.

 

She smiles when Nicole reaches for her smoothly and without hesitation. “Thank you for coming. I didn’t know if you would….”

 

“I’m upset, Wave, but I’m still your girlfriend,” Nicole says a little sadly. “I’m always here for you, regardless of what else is going on with us, or your family, ok?”

 

Waverly nods and she drops her head as tears well in her eyes because it’s almost too much, Willa, and worrying about Wynonna, and Dolls still gone, and her maybe not true parentage, and  _ Nicole _ . 

 

Nicole being mad, and Nicole being upset, and Nicole still wearing the bruise of a bullet she knows Willa would have sent into her gut if she hadn’t thought Wynonna would kill her on the spot with her bare hands for it. 

 

For a second, and the only time in her life, she wishes things were like they used to be with Champ. Where she could take any problem away with her body and her mouth, and as much as she wants that anyway, she knows Nicole deserves better. 

 

She deserves the gift of Waverly’s body when they’re on steadier ground and not as a distraction from a problem, and she deserves to be able to be pissed and upset about this Black Badge bureaucracy, and Waverly hates herself for the thought, but it only forms because she just wants to make it better. 

 

Nicole can feel her tears in the shape of Waverly’s shoulders, without even seeing Waverly’s face because her head is still bowed, and she reaches for Waverly gently with her other hand, opening her body. 

 

“Hey,” she says to the top of Waverly’s head when Waverly moves into her warmth without hesitation. “Hey, Wave it’s going to be ok. I just need some time to deal, alright? It doesn’t mean I don’t lo….it doesn’t mean my feelings have changed at all, I just need some time.”

 

“I’m so sorry,” Waverly cries softly, sniffing hopelessly as the tears roll down her nose, and the weight of  _ everything _ comes crashing around her feet. “I’m so, so, sorry.”

 

“ _ Baby _ ,” Nicole says squeezing her tighter, the concern high in her voice. “Baby, what’s happened? What’s wrong?”

 

_ Something is wrong with me _ and  _ my sister killed my sister _ and  **I don’t know who I am** runs in a loop in her head, but she knows she has to hold it all back or she’ll fall apart completely, and she doesn’t know  **how,** but she  _ knows _ that whatever she’s resisting against will take her completely if she allows herself even a second of that full despair. 

 

“It’s all just a bit much,” Waverly hiccups as Nicole rocks her gently in her arms. 

 

She knows Nicole wants to ask more, but she knows she won’t push either, not if Waverly isn’t ready to say. 

 

“Everything feels like it’s breaking,” Waverly sobs. “And I don’t know what to do.”

 

“Oh, Wave,” Nicole says gently, as though it cracks her heart to hear Waverly admit as much. “I know you’ve got a million other things making you feel like this, but if  _ us _ is one of those then you don’t have to worry, ok? It’s fine, baby. We’re going to be fine.”

 

“But you’re so upset with me,” Waverly cries as her tears thicken. “Everything else sucks, but this is the worst because I just want to cry like this, but you’re mad and I want to give you space.”

 

“I don’t need space,” Nicole says, shaking her head as she continues rocking Waverly back and forth slowly. “I need  _ you _ , Wave. And I need to make sure that you’re ok.”

 

Just like that, Waverly feels the load lighten a fraction, enough for her to flex her rib cage with a breath, shaky and broken, but deep against Nicole’s chest in relief. And she knows that won’t fix everything because Nicole can’t just switch off the hurt, but it’s ok, it’s enough, knowing that Nicole wants to stay. 

 

“I’m here now, alright?” Nicole offers, pulling Waverly firmer to her, the lack of distance between them after days of strain warming Waverly’s chilled bones. 

 

“Yeah,” Waverly sighs, her blood calming as she listens to Nicole’s steady heartbeat through her chest. 

 

She can hear something beating louder over it, like the wings of some giant storm, and Waverly clenches her teeth as she tries to drive the darkness back and focus on Nicole instead. “You’re here.”

 

“I’m here, baby,” Nicole affirms gently, drawing back so she can survey Waverly’s tear-streaked cheeks gently. She reaches for one rolling down the line of Waverly’s jaw before she presses a kiss over the still wet line. 

 

“Let’s get you inside, huh?” Nicole says gently. “I’ll change, and then if you’re ready, you can tell me whatever it was you wanted to tell me.”

  
  


-

  
  


The journal is childlike and cute upon first glance, drawings and crayon figures lining each page, but the words make Waverly’s blood grow spikes in her veins. 

 

Nicole is soft and close at her side, where she’s only been far for the last few days. Their skin married, and it’s the only thing that gives Waverly the strength to share the secret thrown upon her amongst the litter of an old prison that looked like a childhood dream but smelled of dead wood. 

 

She spits the words, harsher than she means to, but they just make her so damn angry, because even as a child, who does Willa think she  **is** . 

 

_ Was _ , Waverly thinks with a wince. 

 

Who does she think she  _ was _ . 

 

Nicole stays calm and rational by her side the whole time, though, and it grounds her. She waits patiently for Waverly to break to offer affirmation and support, and then they kiss properly, not lip to cheek, for the first time in days, and Waverly has to consciously hold back tears again because for the brief moment they touch, everything else melts away. 

 

She has a speech in apology poised on the tip of her tongue when they break apart for breath, her hands trembling with the need to reach for Nicole and  _ hold, _ but before she has the chance Nicole pulls away. 

 

It’s not what she thinks, though, it’s not hesitation or still present anger, it’s just Wynonna. 

 

Waverly catches the sigh before it leaves her lips audibly, because she’s frustrated, but it won’t help anyone, venting her mood like that, so she bites her lip and watches Nicole leave. 

 

Her heart pulls a little at the ease with which she goes, but Waverly knows it’s not about them, not after her earlier affirmation, it’s about Nicole giving her and her sister space. 

 

The room hangs heavy with Willa’s presence still and Waverly knows why they had kept it like this, as a symbol of hope that she’d come back someday. 

 

Maybe. 

 

But she knows Willa isn't coming back this time. 

 

Not ever. 

 

Willa’s ghost hangs on Wynonna’s shoulders when she speaks of haunting, and Waverly’s eyes light because she can’t fix a million other things, but with this, she knows what to do. 

 

She turns to Wynonna with her eyes alight. 

 

Fire.  _ Lots _ of fire. 

  
  


-

  
  


The smell of decontamination shampoo clouds Waverly’s senses as she drives back to the homestead. 

 

Her hair is wet, but drying around her shoulders, and her slime covered coat is perched on the passenger's seat next to her, and the worry she’s been chasing back all day is fresh and terrifying in her throat. 

 

Because when she’d dug her hand in the pocket to look for anything valuable before stuffing it into one of Jeremy’s quarantine bags, her hand had closed around something cold and metal and definitely not meant to be there. 

 

The cloud just behind her vision grows thicker and thicker so she pulls over for a moment, shaking her head to clear it with a mantra of Nicole, Nicole,  _ Nicole _ , the only thing that cuts clean through the smoke, before she moves the shifter and drives.

 

It’s getting worse, Waverly knows it is, but she doesn’t know what to do. Nicole is back and soft again, and she doesn’t want to risk driving that away, not when the sting of an almost break is sharp on her tongue. 

 

She’s not sure how long she has before it’s too late. 

 

She needs to busy herself, so she heads straight upstairs to start the work of cleansing the room for her, and maybe Nicole, too, with Wynonna’s words of affirmation and ok warm in her hands. 

 

“It’s a great idea, baby girl,” Wynonna had said softly at Waverly’s suggestion she take over the room. “We don’t need a shrine anymore. Besides, that other room is way too small, you’ve seen the size of your girlfriend, right?”

 

She pulls the bag of decorations from her old room above Shorty’s, dragging a long run of fabric, before climbing up on the bed to drape it over the window when Nicole’s voice falls behind her. 

 

She almost jumps out of her skin, pressing her hand over her hammering heart and moving for Nicole immediately as she steps into the room. 

 

Nicole’s eyes are softer now, the cold driven from them entirely, replaced with a a soft question and a different kind of hesitation as she explains the envelope in her hands, and Waverly wants to clutch at her chest again because the thoughtfulness floors her. 

 

“As long as you want me, I’ll be by your side.”

 

Waverly’s heart  _ crumbles, _ and she clutches at the stability Nicole offers with open arms and a heart that Waverly thinks might have been made for her, and her alone, like a lifeline.

 

She kisses Nicole, slow and meaningful and soft, with her whole body, not just her lips. 

 

As the belt slides through her hands. Nicole’s stomach trembles beneath Waverly’s touch that shakes furiously, but she doesn’t stop. 

 

Not when she pulls leather free or pushes Nicole’s shirt from her shoulders as she settles between Waverly’s legs. 

 

She doesn’t stop. 

 

 _They_ _don’t stop_. 

  
  


-

  
  


Nicole is extraordinary. 

 

She touches Waverly and her skin sparks hot like a furnace. Like an oil fire. 

 

Her hands curve over Waverly’s body, pulling moans to the surface like their very existence depends on it, and it’s exquisite, and  _ god,  _ Waverly didn’t even know her body bent like that. 

 

They’ve been dancing around this for weeks now, at the stage earlier in the day  _ before…. _

 

(because that’s how she’ll define time now, the years and millennia before Nicole touched her - before Nicole pulled her apart from the inside - and  _ after _ )

 

….where Waverly had thought she might actually destroy herself with her own desire before Nicole had reciprocated Waverly’s intensity, arching into Waverly’s body where they stood with the shadows of their past beaten back into the corners of the room, kissing her and not stopping. 

 

Because she thought for a second that Nicole might stop them, halting Waverly’s hands with a gentle  _ not now, baby, another time,  _ but she hadn’t, and Waverly could thank god because it might have killed her. 

 

Because having Nicole’s gentle touch on her hands was beautiful and reassuring, and they’ve had so much going on that means this probably should have been held off, but Waverly couldn’t wait one more day, not one more hour. Her lungs ached for  _ touch,  _ firm and real and Nicole, and she worried she’d actually suffocate without it.  

 

But Nicole hadn’t stopped, she’d snapped instead, beautifully and hungrily, bending to Waverly with her body as an offering to the devil's chasing both their throats. 

  
  


-

  
  


She looks like a goddess worshipping at their own altar as she moves over Waverly, her eyes quick and black, taking everything in as finally, f i n a l l y, she strips Waverly bare. 

 

They’re wide and wild, and Waverly can see Nicole trying to catch every inch of Waverly’s skin at once because finally she can see everything, she’s allowed to touch Waverly everywhere, and the second she moves over Waverly’s hot, trembling skin for the first time, she can tell Nicole won’t get enough, won’t be satisfied with having her just  _ once _ . 

 

Waverly feels with a deep ache that Nicole needs to bleed them both dry of their desire tonight to sate the animal Waverly can feel trembling beneath Nicole’s skin. 

 

And thank  **god** , because Waverly needs that, too. 

 

Because she’s been watching Nicole’s hands for weeks now, long fingers and soft palms and a touch that burns cold and hot. 

 

Dreaming of what Nicole would feel like  _ inside _ her. 

 

And she has dreamed,  _ lord,  _ has she dreamed. 

 

In the pitch of night or the shy light of morning, her dreams are vivid and her dreams are true, but they’re still a life’s distance away from reality because Nicole slides through an aching wetness,  _ inside _ , and she tries to hold herself together but it’s useless. 

 

Because Nicole pushes inside, and Waverly  **falls** .

  
  


-

  
  


Their first time comes back to her in dreams and fantasies and not a normal memory because Waverly thinks she actually leaves the earth for hours as Nicole  _ touches _ . 

 

It’s not the darkness though, no, Waverly has that in a vice grip between her teeth, strengthened by Nicole’s spirit falling alongside her own, it’s something else. 

 

It’s otherworldly, Nicole’s touch. It makes her move. 

 

It makes her scream. 

 

And she doesn’t know how it will ever, ever be enough. 

  
  


-

  
  


“Is this ok, baby? Can I….”

 

“Yes, take it off. Take it all off.”

  
  


-

  
  


_ A sharp inhale.  _

 

“Are you….”

 

“I’m ok, Nicole. God, I’m ok it’s just…. you’re about to….and I’ve dreamed about this for  _ so _ long.”

 

“We can wait, if you’re not ready we can wait.”

 

“No, I’m ready Nicole. I’m  _ so _ ready. See?”

  
  


-

  
  


“Oh  _ Wave _ , you’re  **_so_ ** ….”

 

_ A caught sigh.  _

 

“Breathe baby, you need to remember to breathe.”

  
  


-

  
  


“Harder, Nicole. I need you harder. Deeper.”

 

“Yes, Wave.  _ Yes _ .”

  
  


-

  
  


She can’t wipe the smile off her face. 

 

Nicole is upstairs still, softly asleep after their afternoon together, and Waverly had slipped from her arms desperate for a drink of water when she thought Nicole was asleep enough not to notice her absence. 

 

Her body still tingles like Nicole hasn’t stopped touching her. 

 

She can feel Nicole’s lips on her neck and her hands on the inside of her thighs and her fingers between them and god, it’s almost enough to make her moan again. 

 

She was expecting it to be different, to be better maybe than before because Nicole kissing her just about gets her off in a way that it  _ never _ has with Champ. 

 

But this, actually being with Nicole, god she doesn’t even have the words for it. 

 

The English language doesn’t do it justice, Latin does better, but still it’s not enough because she dreams of their time together and thinks of sunbursts and planets consuming one another to build a bigger star, and light and light and l i g h t. 

 

Because Nicole had been patient and gentle and slow until Waverly had found her feet, and then she’d  _ burned _ . She touched Waverly like she couldn’t believe this was happening, like she’d been handed the holy grail, and she’d bent and turned and pushed, and Waverly had come with a sob again and again and again. 

 

It was nothing like with Champ. Nothing like she’d been expecting, because it was better. A million times better. Eons between her highest fantasy and what Nicole had actually given her. 

 

The cloud that’s been hung over her mind the last few days is gone, she notices, as she flattens her palms on the table, driven across the land to the ocean by Nicole’s touch and her kisses and her fingers, and for the first time in a week, Waverly feels like she can breathe.  

 

Wynonna’s voice brings her out of her trance and back into the world. She asks Waverly to come with her, and in any other world, she would go without asking, but Nicole is upstairs. 

 

Wynonna smiles genuinely at that, and Waverly is deeply thankful in that moment that Wynonna has accepted them. She’s getting better with Nicole, too, softer, and Nicole might not realise the significance of this yet, because she still seems harsh sometimes, but Wynonna never softens around anyone unless she trusts them implicitly. Then and only then. 

 

“Cold shoulder to warm bed, huh?”

 

Waverly half-grimaces at that because it’s been harder with them the last few days, tense, because this freeze out with Black Badge is bullshit, but it’s for her own good, even if Nicole can’t see that just yet. 

 

Because Nicole might do anything to protect Waverly, but Waverly will do the same for her too. Without a second’s hesitation. 

 

It doesn’t make it easier, though, and she hates when things are like this, and the damn paternity tests won’t make things any easier, but Waverly resolves to do everything to make them so. 

 

Because she’s had Nicole in her bed now, has felt her body skin to skin and nothing will stop her seeking that by her side for the rest of her life. 

 

Wynonna leaves her with a crude remark and a smirk, but there’s a gentleness behind her expression that says she’s happy for Waverly, truly, and that makes Waverly ache in relief and hope and contentment. 

 

She’s so happy,  _ so _ happy but she can’t help but feel a strangely melancholic feeling dragging her limbs down. Because the touch of the love of her life’s hands still warms her body, and they’ve started to build a future on a stronger foundation now, but it’s built on the bones of her sister’s past. 

 

It’s bittersweet. 

 

She can’t do anything now, though, she can’t drive the ghosts out on her own because they’re too heavy, their grip is too tight. She’s strong now, stronger than she’s ever been, but she can’t do it alone. 

 

She’s not, though. 

 

Alone. 

 

Not anymore. 

 

And she’s always had Champ, she’s never really been alone physically, but she’s been alone mentally since she was a child, and she’s not anymore. 

 

Now she has Nicole. Nicole who is full of sun and warmth and love. Nicole, who has tasted her now. Nicole, who has been inside her. 

 

She can’t hear any movement from upstairs, and she hopes it means that Nicole is still fast asleep and hasn’t woken up alone so Waverly can slide back between her arms and the curve of her body and doze until the world calls for them. 

 

Or until Nicole wakes and wants  _ more _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


“What do you like?” Nicole asks, kissing down the line of Waverly’s spine. 

 

Waverly is naked on her belly, her arms folded beneath her head, biting hard into the skin of her forearm to stop moaning loud enough to wake up Wynonna downstairs. 

 

“You’re joking, right?” Waverly deadpans, looking over her shoulder. “I’m literally holding in a moan right now.”

 

“You like my touch, baby,” Nicole says with a smile. “I know that, but I want to know what you  _ really _ like. What do I do that you love. What else do you like that I don’t?”

 

“First off, there’s nothing you do that I don’t like,” Waverly smiles in answer, warm against her own skin. 

 

“It’s ok if you don’t, though, Wave,” Nicole returns and Waverly can feel her pause in her ministrations along Waverly’s back. “You’re allowed to not like something, it won’t hurt my feelings to say. My ego’s a little stronger than that. I’d much rather know, and then I can make sure I only do things that you  _ do _ .”

 

“There really isn’t though,” Waverly replies, wracking her brain as she thinks. It doesn’t take long and she comes up empty handed because there hasn’t been even one glancing touch of Nicole’s body against her own that hasn’t blown her mind. “I don’t think, anyway.”

 

She’s not quite finished, though; there’s another thought on her tongue, and Nicole must be able to feel it in the strength of the tension in her body because she pauses, and waits. 

 

“I know there’s nothing you do that I don’t like, but I don’t know about the other. About what else I might like?” Waverly says, shrugging a little shyly, and she’s thankful Nicole can’t see her face because her inexperience manifests as a blush across her cheeks. 

 

“I mean, it’s not like I’ve had a heck of a load of experience, and I didn’t ever really get  _ anything _ from Champ that I enjoyed, so….”

 

“Oh,” Nicole breathes quietly, and Waverly knows she’s worried that she’s hit a nerve. “I’m sorry, Wave. I didn’t mean….”

 

“It’s ok,” Waverly says gently and she turns, Nicole shifting up slightly to accommodate the movement as she rolls onto her back. Nicole settles between her thighs, her belly warm against Waverly’s core as she speaks again. “Baby, it’s ok.”

 

She’s distracted by their new positions,  _ really _ distracted for a few seconds, before she bites her lip to focus herself and looks to Nicole, who’s face is furrowed in a frown as she tries to find the right words. 

 

“I didn’t mean to bring anything up that was upsetting,” Nicole says softly, her thumbs warm over the curve of Waverly’s hip bones as she looks up the length of Waverly’s torso. “I just….I want this to be extraordinary for you, Wave. All the time. I want to give you everything, all the time.”

 

“I want that, too, you know?” Waverly replies as she reaches down for Nicole’s cheek. 

 

“You  _ do _ give me everything,” Nicole says with a deep smirk before she drops her lips to Waverly’s stomach, nipping at the skin across Waverly’s abs as the muscles flex beneath Nicole’s mouth. 

 

“I’ll tell you if you tell me,” Waverly says, holding her lip between her teeth to stop another moan as Nicole’s tongue smoothes over quickly heating flesh. “Because I know I’m not giving you everything, either, even if you think there’s nothing more you want. I know there are a few things we haven’t….done….but I’d like to try them, I’d like to do them. With you.”

 

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Waverly Earp,” Nicole answers with a grin before she sucks Waverly’s skin hard between her tongue and teeth. 

 

Waverly  _ does _ moan then as she watches the bruise blossom when Nicole draws her mouth back. It’s louder than she’d intended, but it’s so hard not to voice her pleasure sometimes. 

 

It’s so hard to keep quiet when Nicole touches her like the world is ending, with her whole soul, every single time. 

 

“Shhhhh, baby, your sister will hear,” Nicole says, looking up the length of Waverly’s body, and her words are cautionary, but Waverly can tell she doesn’t really care. 

 

Because Waverly’s moans turn Nicole on almost as much as Waverly’s touch does. 

 

And normally volume is something Waverly is conscious of, too, but in this moment, right now, she doesn’t care. She drops her head back and arches into Nicole’s mouth and Nicole’s hands as the redhead smiles and accepts the offering willingly. 

 

“You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in my whole damn life, Waverly,” Nicole says, breathing heavily and a little broken as she draws Waverly’s lower half up off the bed into her mouth. 

 

“Oh,  _ god _ ,” Waverly gasps when Nicole’s hand sweeps down unexpectedly as her mouth fixes to the skin of her stomach, running through the wetness collecting heavily between her thighs. 

 

“Don’t forget your part of the deal, baby. Tell me what you want me to do,” Nicole husks encouragingly as her fingers stroke Waverly not nearly firm enough. “Tell me what you  _ need _ .”

 

Releasing the skin of her forearm from between her clenched teeth, Waverly looks down at Nicole over the curve of breast and bend of rib. Their eyes catch heavily and Nicole holds Waverly’s eye contact as she lowers herself and fixes her mouth warm and wet over Waverly’s core. 

 

“ _ Jesus _ , Nicole,” Waverly gasps as Nicole’s tongue swirls and her fingers push gently against her begging entrance.

 

“Enunciate, baby,” Nicole teases, her mouth low and her breath teasing over scorching hot skin, but not quite touching. “ _ Tell _ me.”

 

“Inside,” Waverly breathes as she writhes against the bed, pushing herself unashamedly towards Nicole’s attention. “Inside, Nicole, I need you  _ inside _ .”

 

And she does, she a c h e s for it, for the stretch of Nicole’s fingers, long and strong and  _ hers _ . 

 

“Good girl,” Nicole purrs against her as she slides in, effortless and frictionless against Waverly’s arousal. “What else, tell me what else you want, Waverly.”

 

It’s the use of her name alongside the feeling of Nicole warm inside that sends Waverly over a tipping point. 

 

Not  _ baby _ or  _ love _ or any other soft endearment. 

 

It’s an order, almost, and only uttered because Nicole knows that Waverly likes it when she’s like this, when she’s  _ firm _ . 

 

“You need to tell me, baby,” Nicole says, smirking. “You’re going to have to tell me or I’m going to stop until you do.”

 

“More,” Waverly gasps, desperate for Nicole to stay. Desperate for her not to pull away. “I need more, Nicole.”

 

“More of what, Waverly?” Nicole asks and Waverly almost curses her because she’s that strung out she thinks she might snap if Nicole doesn’t hurry. 

 

“You, Nicole,” Waverly says, breath like a prayer on the air around them, stopping short when Nicole poises exactly what she’s asking for against her trembling skin and Waverly has to groan deeply before she can carry on. 

 

“I need more of  _ you _ .”

  
  


-

  
  


The days through to the end of her possession are a horrible blur. 

 

She comes to in between, but it’s not enough to form a memory. She’s just trapped in a sea of fog and confusion and panic and metallic silver flashes, because the demon is stronger now, it has more of a hold than she does, and she can’t keep it’s hands off her throat long enough to  _ breathe _ . 

 

The only thing that breaks through the haze is Nicole.

 

But the demon is clever, it snaps when Nicole is near and it drives her away because it knows that somehow, within Nicole, lies the key to Waverly’s strength. 

 

The demon snaps and Nicole keeps her distance because it’s what she thinks Waverly wants.

 

But it’s not, god, it’s not, because she wants Nicole, Nicole,  _ Nicole _ , she  **needs** Nicole, and she’s scared and tired,  _ god,  _ she’s so tired, she’s too exhausted to scream.  

 

The demon makes her push, and Nicole takes a step back, because she thinks that’s what Waverly wants. 

 

But it’s not, god how she wants to scream  _ it’s not _ . 

 

And Waverly  **tries** . 

 

She tries to break through, she tries to make Nicole  _ see, _ but she’s so good and respectful and conscious of what Waverly’s asking for, what she thinks Waverly is hinting for, especially given everything she’s been through, so Nicole does what she thinks Waverly is asking her to do. 

 

She steps back. 

 

She watches and she’s there, but she gives Waverly space. 

 

Waverly is scared the entire time, but she’s terrified when Nicole pulls away because she’s the only thing keeping Waverly sane anymore, and Waverly is worried, no she’s  _ terrified _ that if Nicole doesn’t notice something is wrong, no one will. 

 

She grasps onto the light, though, with both hands she holds, to glowing memories and soft skin and Nicole sighing her name when she comes, of what her kisses taste like in the night. 

 

She closes them around her heart when she thinks all is lost, and the only thing there keeping her company in the blurry dark are echoing sobs in the cage of her own mind. 

  
  


-

  
  


The ropes burn at her wrists and the pain is sharp, but it doesn’t matter because for the first time in weeks, Waverly’s head is  _ free _ . 

 

It’s like taking a breath after almost drowning underwater, the lack of oppression and pressure against her lungs burning in her throat as her mind spins to adjust. 

 

She starts running through a plan in her head, but the demon is more clever, it’s one step ahead and it leaves Waverly tied to the chair with a rag in her mouth, muffling her desperate screams. 

  
  


-

  
  


She takes Mikshun back from Wynonna because she doesn’t have another choice. 

 

Because she can’t beat this thing. She can hold it prisoner, maybe better than anyone else can, but she can’t kill it. 

 

Only the Heir can. 

 

And that’s not her. 

 

So she does the only thing she can think of to make it jump form, she touches her lips to Wynonna’s,  _ just _ , and she takes a deep breath as the darkness settles into her chest again. 

 

_ My, my, Waverly Earp _ , it hisses silently to her as it settles, set to make its home,  _ you’re  _ **_bold_ ** _ after all _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


She remembers grape soda and Wynonna’s hand over her mouth and the rest, from the moment the liquid touches her tongue, is blessedly blank. 

 

She comes to in Nicole’s arms, Nicole who is soft and strong and  _ here _ , not a million miles in the other direction, which she damn well should be if she had a lick of sense. 

 

But she’s not. 

 

She’s here. With Waverly, she’s here.  

 

Her tear-damp cheeks press against Waverly’s and the kiss is soft, but a little desperate around the edges, and Waverly can feel Nicole trembling where her arms fit around her waist. 

 

She’s trembling and she’s crying and Waverly can almost smell how afraid she is, but she’s here. 

 

Wynonna moves to pull her up, and she knows she doesn’t have time and now isn’t  _ really _ the right moment to  _ have _ a moment, but Waverly takes a second to sear this image of Nicole, of pure relief. 

 

Of love, swimming into her body where Nicole touches it. 

 

Because she’s here. Even though Waverly with a demon inside her had done just about everything it could to drive Nicole back and push her away. 

 

But she hadn’t gone. She’d planted her feet instead, almost shot Wynonna, because of Waverly. 

 

_ For _ Waverly. 

 

And Waverly never thought she’d ever be at one end of a bond like that. 

 

Nicole’s arms are warm around her waist, and so are Wynonna’s, and for the first time in weeks, Waverly feels  _ safe _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


They haven’t  _ talked _ because they haven’t had time, and they will, Waverly knows they will, but they need to touch first.

 

Nicole trips over a question before they start to peel each others clothes off,  _ how do you know it was you _ , and when Waverly answers, it’s a lie. 

 

Maybe not a lie, but a mistruth. 

 

Because there are gaps,  _ huge _ gaps, but she doesn’t want to worry Nicole, she doesn’t want Nicole to kill herself with guilt because she will, she will if she thinks for even a second that there is anything she could have done. 

 

If she realises how hard it was for Waverly. 

 

How much she fought. 

 

How much she struggled. 

 

Because she struggled,  _ god, _ she struggled, and it was horrible, it was terrible, it was darker than dark, but that’s why she keeps quiet. Because it was hard enough, she doesn’t want anyone else to suffer through that, especially not Nicole, and she definitely doesn’t want to have to relive it for even a second. 

 

She’ll tell Nicole what she can, what she deserves to know, what she needs to exorcise off her chest, but some little details she’ll keep shut in a vault beside her heart. 

 

She clicks the lock as she takes Nicole’s head in her hands, shutting it out, because the woman she loves has her hands at Waverly’s waist, and her tongue is chasing Waverly’s thumb, and for the first time in weeks, Waverly feels  _ free _ .

  
  


-

  
  


Nicole is careful with her for the first time after….

 

After….

 

Her lips are soft and her hands are softer and it’s what Waverly needs, at first, what they both need. To fall into one another with sighs full of not-yet-spoken love and sorrow-heavy kisses. To breathe in everything they both know they could have lost forever. 

 

Waverly comes with a sob, and she cries as Nicole brings her to her peak, they both do, because Waverly’s here, and their touch is cathartic, but she very nearly wasn’t. 

 

Nicole is gentle with her to begin with, but after their breathing settles for the first time, Waverly pulls Nicole back over her body, her hands pull Nicole’s hips flush against her own, hard, because she needs more. 

 

She needs to  _ feel _ . 

 

She needs Nicole to give her everything, and to  **take** , too. 

 

She needs to have every other thought or feeling or nightmare from the last month driven hard from her mind. 

 

She’ll need tender sighs and whisper soft touches later, in the hours and days that follow, but for now she needs bruising kisses to replace the feeling of the demon on the inside of her skin. 

 

“I need you to go hard, Nicole,” Waverly whispers against Nicole’s lips. “As hard as you can.”

 

Waverly knows Nicole wants to ask, she wants to pull Waverly close and take everything to pieces so she can share Waverly’s  pain, too, but she knows that Waverly can’t do that. Not now. Not yet.  

 

“Tell me what you need, Waverly,” Nicole breathes, shifting them to move between Waverly’s thighs, making her presence heavy. 

 

“I need to forget,” Waverly sighs as she winds her hands in Nicole’s hair and pulls, her body shivering when Nicole moans in response.

 

“Make me forget.”

  
  


-

  
  


You know, I never picked you for a lace girl,” Waverly says, trailing her fingers down between Nicole’s breasts. Up and over the swell as Nicole shivers beneath her. 

 

“I’m not,” Nicole replies with a smirk. “Well, not really. It’s nice for a special occasion, but honestly, it’s mostly for you.”

 

“What do you mean for me?” Waverly asks as she props herself up on her elbow. 

 

“It’s for you,” Nicole says, blushing prettily as she ducks her head to look down between them. “It’s….I mean, I wanted to impress you? Tempt you a little? Turn you on if I was lucky?”

 

“You did?” Waverly asks, and for some reason, the thought of Nicole going out of her way only for Waverly’s own pleasure and nothing else is so touching she forgets where she is for a moment. 

 

“Of course I did,” Nicole answers as her blush deepens. “I wanted to make sure I could keep you in my bed once I’d gotten you there. I wanted you to  _ want _ to stay. To have something to want to come back for.”

 

“First of all,” Waverly says, biting back a smile. “I’d want you in a paper bag, Nicole, so while I really,  _ really _ appreciate it, I’d be here with or without it.”

 

She waits for her words to set in Nicole’s mind before she continues.

 

“Secondly,” Waverly says as her grin turns wicked. “I really, really appreciate the lace, and I hate to take it off, but….”

 

“So don’t,” Nicole offers as her eyes turn black like obsidian. “Leave them on.”

 

“Like this?” Waverly asks, kissing around the edges of the bra as a demonstration. 

 

“Yeah,” Nicole says as her breath catches when Waverly’s tongue and teeth draw skin between them and suck. 

 

“Yeah?” Waverly asks again, a show of mock coyness as she raises her head just high enough to catch Nicole’s eye. 

 

“Yeah,” Nicole gasps when Waverly dips her head again and sucks  _ harder _ . 

 

It’s such a thrill, Waverly thinks with a smirk against Nicole’s skin, drawing noises like this out of Nicole.  

 

It’s easy to draw them from Waverly, only now discovering what pleasure actually is, but Nicole has been places, she’s  _ done _ things, she’s got a well-full of experience and Waverly doesn’t. She doesn’t have anything to go up against the ghosts in Nicole’s bed with. 

 

Except love. 

 

And maybe eternity. 

 

“God, I don’t even want to  _ know _ where you got so good at this,” Nicole breathes as she arches her back into Waverly’s hands when Waverly moves down to kiss her stomach. 

 

“It’s all you, baby,” Waverly answers, smiling as Nicole’s abdomen twitches sharply under her touch. “I learnt it all from you.”

 

“But, I haven’t….” Nicole says a little confused. “I mean….”

 

“You’ve shown me, Nicole,” Waverly affirms as she pauses, straddling Nicole’s hips. “You’ve shown me what feels good and I learned everything I could because I wanted to make you feel good, I  _ want _ to make you feel good.”

 

“Oh, you do, Waverly,” Nicole moans as Waverly’s hands move over her ribs to cup her breasts. “God, you do.”

 

“You haven’t seen anything,” Waverly says before her mouth closes over Nicole’s nipple through the fabric of her bra and her fingers push lace aside to move through and into smouldering heat. 

 

“Baby, you haven’t seen  _ anything _ yet.”

  
  


-

  
  


They fall asleep wrapped tighter than pain around a scar and finally,  _ finally _ , Waverly sleeps.

 

For days and days and days, she  _ sleeps _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


Dolls is saying something about Hypnos, and Waverly’s trying to shake the sleep from her bones as she takes a sip of espresso, but she’s still  _ so _ tired. 

 

She’s tired and her head is spinning and she feels a little sick because Wynonna’s pregnant. 

 

Like  _ properly _ pregnant. 

 

And she was before, but she’s almost full term now if Waverly’s memory and the pregnancy books are correct, and Waverly had been expecting to have months to come to terms with the small body growing steadily, both she and Wynonna, but they don’t have that. 

 

They have weeks maybe. If they’re lucky. 

 

Wynonna’s pregnant and everyone’s been asleep for too long and she doesn’t know who the father is and she hasn’t told Dolls or Doc and it’s too much for Waverly to bear on her own. 

 

She hasn’t told Nicole because Wynonna had asked her specifically not to which is fine, it’s her secret to tell, but keeping this one huge thing from Nicole, even if it’s not directly about her, is crippling her. 

 

She wants to scream into a pillow and cry for things to slow down, but they’ve been slow for months, static, if the size of Wynonna’s belly is anything to go by, and Waverly knows they’ll only barrel by faster from now on, not ease. 

 

It’s too much, and she can feel panic rising in her chest even though the room is relatively quiet, and all she wants to do is crawl back into bed with Nicole. Because they might have been asleep for days and days and  _ days, _ but her thighs still feel unsteady and her lungs ache with their joint moans, but she can’t, they can’t, and now there’s a sharp taste in her mouth from where she’s bitten her tongue. 

 

It’s all too much, and she feels something prickle along her skin, but then Nicole looks to her. She sees the strain in Waverly’s eyes and she reaches for her, smooth and at once, her arm unfolding for Waverly and Waverly sees the space at Nicole’s side open for her and she bends towards it without hesitation. 

 

Nicole gives her one quick glance, because she won’t make a big deal out of whatever is upsetting Waverly now in front of everyone, but the fleeting second’s reassurance in her eyes settles Waverly’s anxiety and worry instantly. 

 

She draws Waverly to her and she drops her head on top of Waverly’s and everything goes silent. 

 

_ Soft _ . 

 

The room is reduced to the two of them. 

 

The worry stops and the fear stills and the anxiety quiets in her blood as she breathes in and out with Nicole. The redhead exaggerates her movement, inhales and exhales deeper, silently willing Waverly to copy her and Waverly  _ does _ . 

 

She focuses on the cadence of Nicole’s steady breathing, and the way it catches when Waverly’s hand slips around her waist because she’s ticklish there, and slowly Waverly’s heartbeat slips back into line. 

 

They’re off moving sooner than she’d like because time waits for no one, not even when it’s a man, but it’s ok,  _ she’s _ ok. 

 

Because Nicole is a balm, a tonic, an elixir, and in an instant, Waverly feels c a l m. 

 

It’s only the quiet before the storm, though, the maelstrom actually, and Waverly will wish later in the dark when the consequences of their actions chase them both with sharp teeth that she’d held Nicole’s waist for just a  _ second _ longer. 

  
  


-

  
  


“Hey,” Nicole says gently as she rubs her hands gently over Waverly’s forearms. “Talk to me. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

 

“Sorry,” Waverly breathes apologetically, her hand finding Nicole’s before she threads their fingers together. “I’m thinking that loud, huh?”

 

“Kinda,” Nicole replies, her face crinkled in a frown. “It’s ok, though, baby, I know you’ve got a lot on your mind. I just want you to know I’m here, when you’re ready to talk about it.”

 

Waverly takes a long, slow breath in as Nicole’s hand closes reassuringly over her arm a little tighter. She releases it as steadily as she can and it still comes out a broken mess. 

 

“I just can’t  _ believe _ she’s pregnant, you know?” Waverly says quietly. 

 

It’s one of things, one of the  **hundred** things, rolling messily around in her mind since Wynonna told her, but she hasn’t voiced any of them before now. Wynonna hadn’t wanted her to say anything and Waverly couldn’t,  _ wouldn’t _ , put the burden of any of them on Wynonna, not knowing how panicked she was herself already. 

 

“I know what you mean,” Nicole says, and Waverly can feel the careful note of her voice. “It’s a hell of a surprise, huh?”

 

“That’s one way to put it,” Waverly returns as she raises her eyebrows a little cynically. “And I’m happy, honestly I am, even though I probably shouldn’t be but….I’m kinda scared, too.”

 

“What are you scared of?” Nicole asks, surprised, her voice soft and her eyes softer as she turns her body towards Waverly fully. 

 

“Where should I start?” Waverly offers with a barked laugh. “You’ve  _ met _ us, right?”

 

She bites her lip then, hesitant to continue, because she doesn’t want Nicole to think any less of her for what she wants to voice.  

 

“Whatever you’re thinking, you can tell me, baby,” Nicole says, like she can read Waverly’s damn mind. “You know that, right? I’m here for Wynonna, too, but I’m yours before I’m anyone else’s. I’ll never judge anything you want to disclose to me. And I won’t ever tell anyone unless you want me to.”

 

Waverly wants to say  _ thank you _ , or  _ I know _ , but nothing comes out, nothing beyond the tears that prick the corner of her eyes and roll forward when Nicole’s face softens at her pain. 

 

She doesn’t manage a word, not yet, because Nicole opens her arms and Waverly falls, her ear finding Nicole’s heart automatically. 

 

It’s a tactic she’s used since Mikshun was banished as a way to calm herself down when her head runs away with her. She slows her own breathing and counts Nicole’s heartbeats, whispering the number against Nicole’s chest as her hands move over Waverly’s back, smoothing calm circles as she waits for Waverly to steady. 

 

“We don’t know what we’re doing, Nicole,” Waverly admits finally. “Absolutely no idea. And Wynonna never even wanted kids. I don’t know if she wants this one yet.”

 

That’s only the beginning, though, and she knows Nicole can feel it, too, because she holds her voice and waits for Waverly to continue. 

 

“I’m so scared we’re going to mess this kid up, Nicole,” Waverly breathes. “I’m scared they’re going to become like the rest of us.”

 

“And why on earth would that be such a bad thing, Waverly Earp?” Nicole asks as she pulls her head away from the top of Waverly’s so she can look Waverly in the eye. “I know you and Wynonna haven’t had it easy, but do you know what else I know? Above everything else?”

 

“That we get worse the more you know about us?” Waverly says cynically. 

 

“That you’ve had it rough, but  _ god _ , the two of you can love,” Nicole says, her voice firm and strong. “I know she hasn’t always been around, Wave, but Wynonna loves you, more than I’ve ever seen anyone love family before. She’d die for you, in a heartbeat if she had to, and I know you’d do the same for her. You love deep, and you love hard, and that is a special, special thing. Do you know how rare that is?”

 

“No?” Waverly questions, sniffing, her tears wetting her top as they roll down her cheeks. 

 

“It’s rare, Wave.  _ Damn _ rare,” Nicole says with a smile as she looks to Waverly. “And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she is going to love that baby just as much, if not more and that’s all you really need. Love. Just love.”

 

“You really think so?” Waverly asks quietly. 

 

“I know so,” Nicole affirms as she bends her head and kisses Waverly, slow and steady and  _ calming, _ and Waverly leans in. 

 

Her hands tighten over Nicole’s where they rest around her arms and she tries to say thank you with her body, because her lungs feel weak again. 

 

“You’ll stay?” Waverly asks with a shaky voice after a moment. “You’ll stay and be Aunt Nicole with me?”

 

“Oh, Wave,” Nicole answers softly, tears in her own eyes now. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

  
  


-

  
  


“I’ll be  _ fine _ ,” Nicole says with a casual wave of her hand, the alcohol in her blood making the movement a little looser than normal. 

 

“Of course you will be, baby,” Waverly coos, her hand over Nicole’s knee as the two of them sit on the edge of the squad car, legs dangling off the ground. 

 

“But it would make me feel a whole lot better if you came home with us,” Waverly says sweetly, her breath pluming in the cold. “Please, for me.”

 

“ _ Anything _ for you,” Nicole purrs as she leans in, pulling Waverly to her in an uncharacteristic display of affection in front of their wildly unimpressed companion. 

 

“You guys are disgusting,” Wynonna deadpans from where she’s standing a few feet away. “Keep your hands to yourselves, alright. I don’t want to mentally scar this kid before it’s born by having to listen to it’s Aunts get off on the back of a squad car. That sort of shit is for its teenage years, you hear me?”

 

“But your sister is  _ so _ pretty,” Nicole says dramatically as she pulls back from Waverly with a sigh, and try as she might, Waverly can’t help the blush the that spreads across her cheeks. 

 

She catches Wynonna’s eye mid-blush, and she watches her sister’s scowl turn to a soft smile. She knows Wynonna will never admit it, but Waverly knows it means the world to her, too, almost as much as it does to Waverly, having someone so genuinely adore her like Nicole does. 

 

“Keep it in your pants, Haught,” Wynonna says firmly, but there’s no malice in her voice and she throws Waverly a smile that Waverly returns easily. “ _ Especially _ when we get home, alright. Those walls are a hell of a lot thinner than you two think they are, even from up the stairs.”

 

“Not my fault she’s so beautiful,” Nicole grumbles alongside a frown that disappears the second Waverly kisses her cheek. 

 

“So you’ll come with us?” Waverly asks as she draws little circles on the inside of Nicole’s thigh, a sweet, ever so teasing smile gracing her features. 

 

“Yeah,” Nicole replies, beaming at Waverly’s touch. “I’ll come with you. And then I’ll….”

 

“Uh-uh-uh,” Wynonna says quickly as she moves to the driver’s door. “You finish that sentence and I’ll throw you off this car now, belly or no belly.”

 

“You’re no fun,” Nicole grouses, slumping back with a frown, and Waverly grins at the childish scowl on her face. 

 

“You sure you’re ok to take this home?” Waverly asks, gesturing to the squad car. 

 

“Course,” Wynonna says with a shrug as she pulls the door open. “See you at home, soon. Be careful, ok? These roads are slippery as shit. Don’t you distract my sister while she’s driving, alright?”

 

“I would  _ never _ ,” Nicole gasps, looking horrified, and Wynonna and Waverly both smile at how easy this looser version of Nicole is to wind up. 

 

“I know, baby,” Waverly says, watching Nicole as she slides off the car with a surprising amount of grace given the amount of alcohol Waverly knows she’s had to drink.

 

She turns, holding her hand out for Waverly to take as she slides off, too, the smile deepening when Wynonna rolls her eyes at the small act of chivalry. 

 

“Disgusting,” Wynonna repeats before she turns the engine over. “ _ Di-sgutsting _ .”

  
  


-

  
  


“You’re a very cute drunk, you know?” Waverly says as she pads over from the door before folding a cup of tea into Nicole’s hands where she’s sitting up in Waverly’s bed. 

 

She scrunches her nose up when she sees what it is, obviously expecting coffee, and Waverly smiles as she sits down. 

 

“It’s herbal,” Waverly explains, not missing the way Nicole’s face screws into a deeper frown. “It’s better for your impending hangover than coffee, and it’s still got a bit of caffeine in it, but it won’t keep you up all night. 

 

“What if I  _ want _ to be up all night,” Nicole says and Waverly turns surprised.

 

Because it’s not that she doesn’t  _ want  _ to - because she always does now - but Nicole had looked like death warmed over when Waverly had left her in bed a few minutes ago, before she had walked downstairs to speak with Wynonna. 

 

Now she looks like she’s ready to pull Waverly to her and eat her alive, despite the fact that Wynonna is downstairs, still probably wide awake.

 

“What are you thinking about?” Waverly asks, blushing, as she drops her head so she can look at Nicole with shy eyes. 

 

“You,” Nicole says as her lips turn in a hungry smile before she notices the melancholy clinging to Waverly’s skin following her conversation with Wynonna. “What are you thinking about baby, is something wrong? Is it me? Because I promise I’m hardly ever drunk, and I only am now because I was trying to make the day better for Wynonna, and….”

 

Waverly smiles, the alcohol in Nicole’s system outlining the little insecurities Waverly knows she often has, but keeps in check. 

 

“You’re perfect, Nicole,” Waverly replies easily as her hand finds Nicole’s cheek. “And I’m glad you’re here tonight, not just so I can enjoy your adorable drunk rambling, I just….”

 

She trails off, not quite sure how to voice her worry, and she’s about to give up when Nicole meets her eyes and  _ sees _ her. 

 

Waverly feels her hand grow warmer against Nicole’s skin because Nicole  _ always _ sees her. 

 

She doesn’t say anything, because Waverly doesn’t actually need her to, she just needs to know Nicole is here. She raises her hand, placing it over Waverly’s against her cheek before she turns her head and captures Waverly’s palm with a kiss. 

 

She finds strength then, warm and safe in Nicole’s presence, enough to speak aloud her own insecurity. 

 

“I’m not a needy girl,” Waverly says quietly. “But I need you tonight, Nicole. Selfishly, probably, because I’m sure you’d rather just be at home with Calamity Jane in your own bed, but…. I need you with me, tonight.”

 

“Baby,” Nicole breathes as she moves closer to the edge of the bed. Closer to Waverly. “I could have the comfiest bed in the world in the biggest palace, and I’d still choose to be here with you, every single time.”

 

“You would?” Waverly asks as her voice breaks around the edges. 

 

She’s so eternally grateful for Nicole in that moment, knowing not to push, knowing that whatever’s bothering Waverly, she isn’t ready to talk about. 

 

That tonight she needs to  _ not _ give it a voice, but to keep it silent and tethered in the dark. 

 

“Every single time, baby,” Nicole affirms as she leans in and presses a long kiss to Waverly’s lips, her hand sliding around to the back of Waverly’s neck. 

 

Nicole tastes like sweet cocktails and smells faintly of smoke, and when she pulls back and rests her forehead on Waverly’s, Waverly almost says  _ I love you _ . 

 

It’s there, on the tip of her tongue, and when their eyes meet Waverly knows it’s in Nicole’s lungs, too, but now doesn’t feel like the right time. 

 

Waverly doesn’t want it to be on the back of trouble or grief, she wants it to be  _ free _ . 

 

Nicole’s fingers massage lightly, soothingly, and her voice is like honey when she calls Waverly to rest. 

 

“Come to bed, baby,” Nicole breathes as her hands move to rid Waverly of her clothes gently at Waverly’s silent nod. 

 

“There aren’t any ghosts here. It’s just you and me.”

  
  


-

  
  


“What are you afraid of?” 

 

Waverly’s voice calls softly, sometime in the middle in the night, Nicole’s arm warm across her stomach.

 

Her mind is still reeling from the inundation of  _ far _ too much information, and she hasn’t found mental quiet enough to drift off to sleep yet. 

 

She knows she could have slipped out of the bed and paced the house, but there’s more peace here, with Nicole in her bed, than Waverly knows she will find anywhere else in the world. 

 

There’s something pulsing gently in her veins that Waverly can’t quite put her finger on. It’s safe and whole and  _ content _ , Waverly thinks as her heart skips a beat, the emotion foreign to her. 

 

For the first time in her life, she feels  **content** . 

 

She’s been quiet in the dark hours of the night, conscious not to wake Nicole, but she can feel her breath changing now and she knows Nicole has risen for her. 

 

“What do you mean, baby?” Nicole asks with a sleep heavy voice as she props herself up on her elbow to look down at Waverly. 

 

“What are you afraid of?” Waverly says again, quietly, her fingertips light as they whisper over Nicole’s forearm. “I just realised I don’t know. You seem so strong and brave all the time, it seems like there’s nothing.”

 

“I’m scared of plenty of things, baby,” Nicole says a little shyly, looking down at Waverly with soft,  _ soft _ eyes.  

 

“You are?” Waverly asks, and she’s genuinely surprised, because she wasn’t trying to flatter Nicole before, she truly didn’t think there could be much that did frighten her. 

 

“Of course I am,” Nicole says as she grins. “What are we talkin’ here though? Big fears or little ones?”

 

“Anything,” Waverly clarifies as her fingers slip between Nicole’s where they splay across her belly. “I just want to know more about you.”

 

“You’re not gonna use this against me are you?” Nicole teases with a sleepy smile. “This hasn’t all just been some big plan to infiltrate the ranks of Purgatory’s finest, is it?”

 

“You caught me,” Waverly says around a soft laugh. “ _ That’s _ our plan. I fall for you, and convince you to divulge all your secrets to us.”

 

“You  _ actually _ fall for me?” Nicole asks with a smirk. “Not just pretend to?”

 

“Of course,” Waverly replies, nodding, as though as much should have been obvious. “There was no helping that.”

 

She can feel Nicole smiling in the darkness beside her and her heart beats faster again, the memories of their time together earlier in the evening fresh and hot beneath her skin. 

 

“So, baby,” Waverly asks again, sweetly. “What are you afraid of?”

 

“I’m afraid of a lot of things, Wave,” Nicole answers as she looks down at Waverly. “Like, cramped spaces. Peanut butter and jelly mixed together.”

 

“No,” Waverly says with a mock dramatic gasp. “You are not.”

 

“It’s disgusting,” Nicole deadpans before the corners of her mouth turn up in a smile. “Sugar and salt should not mix, baby.”

 

“I’ll convert you one day,” Waverly says with a smile as her hand moves over Nicole’s bare hip beneath the blankets.  “What else?”

 

“Oh, a ton,” Nicole replies as she sighs at Waverly’s touch. “Really, you’d be surprised at how much of a wuss I am.”

 

“I don’t know about that,” Waverly says, her hands moving higher, brushing the underside of Nicole’s breasts before they move down almost indecently low. “You seem  _ really _ brave to me. It was brave, coming to talk to me that day in the bar.”

 

“It’s easier to be brave when there’s something I really want at the end of it,” Nicole breathes, her eyes fluttering closed as Waverly’s hands continue to tease. “There’s only really one thing that matters, though. One thing that I’m afraid of above everything else.”

 

“What’s that?” Waverly asks curiously, her hand closing over Nicole’s, firm and steadying. 

 

“Of losing you, baby,” Nicole says, like a lullaby to the darkness, and her words etch themselves into Waverly’s skin. 

 

“I’m afraid of losing you.” 

  
  


-

  
  


Waverly is absolutely hopeless at pool but that’s not why she had suggested the game in the first place. 

 

It’s definitely not because Nicole’s pants are  _ tight _ and when she has to lean over to take a shot Waverly has a perfectly unhindered view of….

 

She’s hopeless at this game when she’s concentrating, which she’s also not because Nicole smirks at her before she takes her next turn like she knows  _ exactly _ what Waverly’s doing, and Waverly blushes the colour of Nicole’s jacket at being caught. 

 

It’s nice, to relax for a moment, to try and forget the worry running riot in the back of her mind because the last few days have been hectic, and hellish, and overwhelming, and it’s nice to do something  _ normal _ for a change. 

 

Something slow. 

 

Something fun. 

 

Like imagining Nicole bending her over the pool table and pulling up her dress and….

 

She tells Nicole about the DNA test, her voice shy and scared, and she’s expecting the frown because she knows Nicole will be upset that Waverly didn’t tell her, but there’s something else there, too, that Waverly can’t quite put her finger on. 

 

She doesn’t press though, because she doesn’t want to think about that now. 

 

She wants to think about something  _ else _ . 

 

“Distract me,” Waverly asks as her hands slide around Nicole’s shoulders and she pushes her body against Nicole’s.  _ Give me something else to think about.  _

 

Something that involves  _ you _ and  _ me _ and your tongue and my fingers and an empty bathroom stall  _ if we're brave enough _ . 

 

They’ve been intimate a fair few times now, since the evolution of their physical relationship, and Mikshun, and it sounds terribly cliche, but it’s been nothing short of life changing for her. 

 

Waverly has spent years of being sexually repressed, of being unsatisfied and left wanting, and now that Nicole has shown her what the dichotomy of that looks like, she  _ cannot get enough. _

 

Waverly’s never been an overly sexual person but she feels like a teenage boy the second Nicole’s arms move around her waist, every damn time, and her brain is flooded with memories and the ghost of Nicole’s breath on her inner thigh and she wants  _ more _ . 

 

Rosita shows up before she can jump on that runaway train, though, pitching the idea of the baby shower and she wants to politely decline, but Nicole’s calm voice at her ear stops her. 

 

She eases Waverly, her voice gently reminding Waverly just what’s at stake now, and just how important it is to put effort into all the relationships around her, for the sake of the little one, and it’s enough for Waverly to soften and nod. 

 

She gives in and cooperates, even though she  _ really _ doesn’t want to. 

 

For Wynonna. 

 

And for Nicole. 

 

Rosita twirls the bottle of tequila in her hand and Waverly bites her lip and tries her damndest  _ not _ to roll her eyes. 

 

_ For Wynonna _ , she repeats in her head.  _ For Nicole _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


The alcohol from the not-mocktails in her blood makes Waverly bold and she waits until Rosita slips out the back before she takes Nicole’s wrist and pulls her towards the bathroom. 

 

“Wave, what are you?” Nicole asks before Waverly shuts the door, taking Nicole’s hand, moving it between her thighs, and Nicole’s question dies on her lips. “ _ Oh _ ….”

 

“Yeah,” Waverly says dangerously, moving her body against Nicole, backing her into the wall. “ _ Oh _ ….”

 

“Baby, Rosita is  _ just _ outside,” Nicole tries to reason, although Waverly can see how close she is to losing her self-restraint, her hand shaking where Waverly’s holding it against warm cotton and lace, but not beneath it. “And she could literally come in at any second.”

 

She’s only  _ not _ pushing Waverly hard up against the door for the sake of pretense, and Waverly smiles because she can feel how thin that pretense is against her chest. 

 

“I know,” Waverly says, leaning in to tease her lips against Nicole’s. “Doesn’t that make it more exciting?”

 

“Waverly  _ Earp _ ,” Nicole replies, smiling, and Waverly can’t quite decide if she’s more shocked, or more impressed, or some combination of both. 

 

“If you don’t want me, though, we can just go back into the bar….” Waverly says with a bluff, playing innocent and coy, just the way she knows Nicole likes as she makes to move away. 

 

“Uh-uh,” Nicole answers, the tone of her voice changing as her free hand locks around Waverly’s wrist. “We’re not going anywhere.”

 

Nicole’s words start a shiver in her belly that stretches out to her fingertips when Nicole spins them both so she can push Waverly firmly into the back of the bathroom door. 

 

“You’re going to have to be  _ very _ quiet,” Nicole says as her smile  deepens and her fingers twitch against Waverly’s core.  

 

“You might have to make me,” Waverly returns, her breath catching against Nicole’s lips when her fingers dip around the edge of Waverly’s underwear, beneath it. 

 

She’s never wanted to play the role of a sighing, blushing girlfriend because she’d never wanted to willingly give up any power over her own body. 

 

She had never trusted Champ with it, not ever, but being with Nicole is  _ different _ . 

 

Because Waverly gives Nicole her submission, freely and wholly, and Nicole gives her all the power in return. 

 

The power to say  _ stop _ or  _ stay _ or  **harder** , and it changes everything. 

 

Nicole’s fingers move against her, slipping easily, and she gasps against Waverly, their lips a whisper apart. 

 

“Oh,  _ baby _ ,” Nicole says with a shaky breath, like she can’t believe how wet Waverly is already. 

 

Her expression turns wicked, and she spreads Waverly’s arousal teasingly, drawing light lines against Waverly’s length that aren’t quite firm enough. 

 

“Nicole, please,” Waverly moans, her hands finding purchase in Nicole’s hair as her leg winds up around Nicole’s hip and she moves more desperately to chase Nicole’s hand. 

 

The movement raises her skirt higher and opens her up more fully for Nicole, and Waverly takes a moment to  _ look _ because she feels like she’s coming loose at the edges, but god, so is Nicole. 

 

_ This _ is it,  _ this _ is what makes Waverly hotter and harder than she ever thought she would feel, seeing how much she can make Nicole unravel. 

 

How quickly and how thoroughly she comes to pieces when she touches Waverly. 

 

“Tell me what you want, baby,” Nicole says as she takes Waverly’s bottom lip between her teeth. 

 

“Everything,” Waverly gasps as Nicole smirks and pushes  _ in _ . “God, Nicole, I want everything.”

  
  


-

  
  


They’re  _ definitely _ not as quiet as they should be, and Rosita  _ definitely _ knows exactly where they’ve been, and why Waverly’s now sporting a pretty new blush to match the hickey on her inner thigh that is  _ just _ visible when she walks and her skirt rises up, but Waverly doesn’t care. 

 

It’s much easier to fall into party-planning mode with an orgasm apiece throbbing against her skin, easier still when Rosita keeps topping up her drink, and for a while Waverly forgets. 

 

She forgets that she might not be an Earp, and that her sister is about to have a baby, and that there’s something deeply dangerous moving through this town that keeps slipping through their fingers. 

 

She forgets, and she has fun. 

 

Until she doesn’t. 

 

She reaches into Nicole’s handbag looking for a pen and she watches as Nicole’s face changes. 

 

It looks like she’s jumped into a pool of ice and she’s near to freezing, and Waverly doesn’t understand until her hands close around an item that by all accounts should not be in Nicole’s bag, if it’s what Waverly thinks it is. 

 

She pulls the oversized envelope out into the open air, and it changes the temperature of the room, as drastically as it changes the expression on Waverly’s own face. 

 

“Because I love you.”

 

She’s angry, and already crying, and she needs to get the hell away from here, from Nicole, but  _ that _ almost makes her pause enough to stay. 

 

Almost.

 

_ Almost _ . 

 

It’s almost enough, but it’s not. Not in this moment.

 

Her hand closes around crumpled paper, and Nicole’s betrayal flares hot and bright, and it makes Waverly’s body move, even though her heart is screaming at her to stay. 

 

Nicole’s voice follows her, desperate and sorry, as she takes flight. She walks, fast and faster, away, away,  _ away _ and her hand closes around the paper and envelope that, now open, for all intents and purposes, has just sealed her fate. 

  
  


-

  
  


The air moves across the lake like a lover’s breath, and the ice looks like diamond, and it should be beautiful to her, but it’s not. 

 

She’s shaking, not from the cold, though, from the results in her hand.  

 

She’d been right, reading the truth from Nicole’s broken expression. 

 

She’s not an Earp. 

 

She’s not Wynonna’s sister. 

 

Their blood doesn’t match. It’s not the same. 

 

The lake is like crystal but it doesn’t soothe, it  _ taunts, _ and the cold aches heavy and deep in her bones. 

  
  


-

  
  


She's not an Earp.

 

The tears are wet on her cheeks and her hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel of her truck and she feels sick to her stomach. 

 

It doesn't matter what the rest of the results say, not that they  _ do _ say much else, but that's the important part. 

 

She's not a damn Earp. 

 

She's spent years rebelling against the foundation laid in the earth that sets bad stock to that name, and it's not even hers to rebel against. 

 

And Waverly doesn't even know what hurts the most either, the results or Nicole's betrayal. Because she'd known. She'd  _ known, _ and she hadn't said anything. She had gone behind Waverly's back and….

 

_ And _ ….

 

And the worst thing is she wants to drive to Nicole's and fall apart on her doorstep, to have Nicole pick her up and carry her inside like she knows Nicole can, and soothe her tears with soft hands in her hair and firm kisses to her palms and her neck and her stomach and….

 

But she can't. 

 

She can't because she's so damn mad and hurt, and she wants to scream at the moon because everything's broken and everything's wrong and she's not an Earp and Nicole isn't the person she thought she was and Waverly doesn't know what the hell to do. 

 

She drives home in the end, hours later - her legs cramped from sitting in the car so long - ignores Wynonna's chipper teasing voice when she walks into the kitchen, swipes the bottle off the top of the fridge in front of Wynonna, and stomps up the stairs to her room. 

 

Wynonna's off her feet and following her, but Waverly's quicker, she gets the door shut and slumps against it before Wynonna can push her way in. 

 

She hears a teasing voice, and then a more serious one when she realises everything is definitely  _ not _ ok, but Waverly doesn't answer beyond saying that she's not dying, and neither is anyone else, but she wants to be left alone. 

 

Wynonna persists for a few minutes before she realises Waverly is as stubborn as she is, and if she says she's not opening up, she's  _ really _ not going to. 

 

Waverly can feel her palm against the wood of the door before she leaves with an  _ I'm just downstairs baby girl, anything you need, ok?  _ and Waverly is left alone again. 

 

She pulls her phone out of her bag some time later, several missed calls and texts waiting from Nicole, but she can't stomach the thought of replying or actually talking to her. 

 

Not yet. 

 

She opens them, though, so Nicole will see the small  _ read _ next to each of them and a tiny vindictive part of her lights in the pain that she knows that will cause. 

 

That's a warning sign to the rational part of her brain that she's not thinking straight, because she'd  _ never _ want to cause Nicole pain, not like that and not ever, but she's too hurt and she doesn't care. 

 

Can't care. Can't even think straight. Not tonight. 

 

Because she's not a damn Earp. 

 

She takes the top off the bottle and takes a long swig that burns her throat and sets tears to the corner of her eyes. 

 

She's always been able to handle her liquor, and she always thought it was because she was an Earp, but she knows now that that's not true. That can't be the case because the results burning a hole in the bottom of her bag tell her that's biologically impossible. 

 

That doesn't matter either, though, not tonight, it just means she'll have to take an extra sip or two before the pain in her lungs starts to ease. 

 

Her phone buzzes twice on the floor beside her and she sees Nicole's name flash across the screen. 

 

She knows she'll have to deal with it eventually because they'll see each other at the station in the morning, but she just can't bear it right now. Not while her fingers curl into her palm with pain and anger and confusion, too.  

 

She slides her phone across the floor out of sight with a muttered curse under her breath as Nicole's name appears again and takes another sip, ignoring the dull throb in her chest where her heart is as the walls start to close in around her. 

  
  


-

  
  


Waverly sleeps terribly. 

 

She dreams of parents with blank faces and tombstones with no one’s name on them and Nicole in a wedding dress standing at the end of an altar with that goddamn envelope in her hands, waiting for Waverly with tears in her eyes. 

 

She wakes exhausted, with a slightly dull headache and a cotton-dry mouth, as she eyes the half-empty bottle of whiskey balefully before she drags herself beneath the stream of too-hot water. 

 

Nicole's there when she gets in, making herself artfully absent until she absolutely has to because Waverly hasn't said anything to her besides a clipped message saying  _ I need time,  _ and Waverly hates how harsh the words directed to her come out, how snide, but honestly she can't help them because she's still so damn upset and anger is easier than crying. 

 

And she knows it doesn't change anything, that her spite doesn't make her any more an Earp, but she has no one else to blame and this feels cathartic and somewhere, very,  _ very _ deep down, the part of her that loves Nicole with her entire soul knows that Nicole is the only one who will wear this kind of treatment.

 

She knows it's not Nicole she's angry with, not really. It's her Daddy for lying, and her Mama for lying and leaving, and Wynonna for never asking questions, and Willa for hating her before she knew what the word meant. 

 

But not Nicole. She's not really mad at Nicole at all, she’s just hurt. 

 

But Mama and Daddy aren't here and honestly, she doesn't know Wynonna won't run if she bites out in that direction. But Nicole? 

 

Nicole will  _ stay _ . 

 

Nicole will bear the lashes she throws because she loves Waverly deeper than the night is dark, and because she  _ has _ messed up, and it's a legitimate direction, sort of, the only legitimate direction Waverly has to throw anger in. 

 

And she knows it's not fair and it's  _ horrible _ and Nicole deserves better, but  _ she's not an Earp, _ and she doesn't know how to stop the bleeding that no one else can see. 

  
  


-

  
  


She’s sharp to Nicole, her words like barbs, and it’s so much worse because she does it in front of the others, but she can’t help it, the words slipping from her mouth before she can claw them back. 

 

Waverly knows it’s immature somewhere deep in her rational mind, but she can’t summon enough strength to keep her mouth shut because she’s never had to do this before. 

 

Fights with Champ hadn’t ever really been fights because Waverly hadn’t ever really cared enough to make them into something. 

 

She hasn’t had to do this before, but she knows Nicole will have. Because she’s experienced and she’s dated before and she’s had fights with people she cares about, and Waverly knows it shouldn’t, but that only makes her  _ angrier _ . 

 

Because Nicole knows what to do with the fact that the person she wants the most and the person she’s the angriest with are the same person. She knows how to deal with that. She knows what to do. 

 

She can keep a calm, hurt veneer while Waverly throws blow after blow her way, when all Waverly can do is snap and scratch with her words. 

 

Everyone except Jeremy is astute and respectful enough to ignore it, though, as much as they can, until eventually Wynonna snaps and drags her into an empty office, standing over her with her arms crossed. 

 

“That’s enough. We’re going to work this out of you, baby girl,” Wynonna says with a grimace. “Whether you like it or not. Because that girl loves you, and I know she made a mistake, but she doesn’t deserve this shit.”

 

“But….” Waverly tries before Wynonna closes her eyes and raises her hand, gesturing for Waverly to shut up. 

 

“No buts, ok? I’m on your side, you know I am, but that’s why I’m doing this. Because you’re being an asshole, and if you drive Nicole away before you come to your senses, you’re going to regret it forever.”

 

Waverly’s heart falls and her lungs deflate and she feels terrible because she knows Wynonna is right, but the pain twists in her chest every time she looks at Nicole, so she just can’t stop. 

 

“I know it might not seem like it, Waverly, but everyone has their breaking point and hers is long and pretty goddamn elastic if you ask me, but it’s there,” Wynonna says seriously. “She’s taking this like a champ, but it’ll get too much if you don’t pull your freaking head in. It’s there, baby girl, her tipping point. Don't for a second think it’s not, because it is.”

 

The angry scowl across her brow softens and she unfolds her arms as Wynonna pulls her into a hug. It’s not the body she wants, the one she knows she needs, but it’s comfort still, the first she’s had since she slipped her hand off Nicole’s knee in the bar. 

 

Wynonna’s hand is soft on Waverly’s head when she speaks again and Waverly begins to cry. 

 

“And I don’t want you to find it.”

  
  


-

  
  


She knows Nicole's desperate to try and reach out to her. That she has to bite her nails into her palms to stop herself moving for Waverly's hand during the day or when they speak to Tucker’s next of kin. 

 

And god, it  _ hurts, _ because she has to do the same in kind to stop her own body shifting for Nicole's, but every time she looks at Nicole, she sees her not-actual-father's hate staring her down over Nicole's shoulder, and she winces and turns away lest it stop her heart. 

 

She knows she needs to talk eventually, that she needs to tell Nicole what's really wrong, but she doesn't know how to articulate her fear yet, and anger is easier than tears and actually dealing with it, so she holds her ground. 

 

But she knows she won't last much longer, because she misses Nicole with a dull ache like a piece of her is missing, and it cries for it's other half like a wolf at night.

  
  


-

  
  


It’s harder now that she knows what Nicole tastes like in the dark, because she wants to scream and yell, but she wants to bite, too. 

 

She wants to drag her nails down Nicole’s back and make her beg Waverly to stop. 

 

It’s new, this darkness; but she’s tasted it’s whisper before. It’s all that remains from the demon’s taint, and she’ll never tell anyone, not even Nicole, because she knows there’s nothing in the world they can do to drive it out. 

 

It’s part of her now, only a small part, something that wakes slowly when she’s angry or upset, and most of the time she forgets it’s there, but it is. 

 

Most of the time the light can take over, but every now and then the shadow  _ breaks, _ and Waverly has to bite down to keep it in check. 

 

It comes looking for her in the nights she has sent Nicole from her bed, it crawls beneath the covers and shows her visions of how Nicole would arch and bend beneath Waverly’s touch if she had Nicole there now. 

 

How deep their moans would shake the walls. 

 

How  _ devastatingly _ they both would come. 

 

Waverly knows how to push it back now; she knows she needs to feed it, that she has to give it what it wants. 

 

Pleasure, black and grey and  **hard** . 

 

She pushes one hand between her thighs, the other rough at her breast, and she imagines Nicole’s teeth at her neck, biting back as she comes. 

  
  


-

  
  


Rosita tastes dark, like cherries and bourbon and smoke, and when she kisses her, Waverly breaks her own heart.

 

She knows the second Rosita’s lips touch hers that she's wrong. That this is so,  _ so _ wrong. 

 

Rosita can't get away from her fast enough, and honestly, she doesn't blame her because Waverly is a wreck and Waverly is broken and actually, who  _ is _ she? 

 

Because this isn't the Waverly she knows. This isn't the Waverly that Nicole fell in love with. 

 

This is a bitter shell, and all of a sudden, she's done. Reality snaps back into place like a trip-wire or a rabid dogs teeth, and she realises with a sickening jolt what she has done. 

 

She comes back to herself properly, like she's been in a trance since she took that letter from Nicole's hands, and she knows it'll cost her more than she might be able to bear in pain, but she wants her heart back. 

  
  


-

  
  


“She'll open the door for you,” Rosita says with eyes that also say  _ because she loves you,  _ and Waverly's moving before her brain catches up because Rosita is right. 

 

She doesn't need time, and she doesn't need space, she needs Waverly to tell her how she really feels, and what she's done, but she's too late. 

 

She’s too damn late. 

  
  


-

  
  


She comes to chaos. 

 

Because Nicole is bleeding and Nicole is screaming and Nicole is dying, dying,  _ dying, _ and Waverly doesn't know what to do. 

  
  


-

  
  


“My love, she’s got iron in her blood.”

 

And she does, but it’s not strength, it’s poison. 

 

She bursts out into the fresh air and draws it in with great heaving breaths because it’s too much. 

 

Nicole is dying, but Nicole is married, and her wife is here, but she knows about them, about Waverly. She knows that Nicole  _ loves _ Waverly. 

 

_ Loves _ . 

 

But that doesn’t matter now, because Nicole is dying, and Wynonna is out there trying to help, but what if she fails. What if she can’t find the cure. 

 

What if Nicole….

 

No. She can’t stand it. Will not have it. It’s not an option. She’ll do whatever she has to in order to save her.

 

Anything. 

 

Desperate things make desperate decisions. 

 

The words echo sickeningly in Waverly's head as she makes a deal with a witch and seals both of their fates. 

  
  


-

  
  


“You smell  _ rare _ .”

 

The widow’s words echo as she waits for Nicole to wake, as she takes the antidote into her blood and heals. 

 

She knows it will work, because she can feel the price like shackles around her wrists already and it hasn’t even been paid, and weight doesn’t set like that unless the thing that was saved is around as a reminder of guilt. 

 

Of what Waverly has done. 

 

“You smell  _ rare _ .”

 

Nicole’s wrist is warm under her palms, not fever hot anymore, but the words taunt her. 

 

She doesn’t know what it means, only that she’s not a Revenant maybe, because they’re a dime a damn dozen round here nowadays. But what is she? What the heck else is out there?

 

God, it’s all too much and she’s  _ exhausted _ . She drops her head to the bed beside Nicole, biting her lip to stop the tears falling.

 

Shae has gone, on her way out of Alberta back home with a promise to tell Nicole hi, and she’s here, sitting with lead in her stomach and a dirty, guilty conscience as she waits for Nicole to wake and her sister to return so she can try and explain the price she has paid. 

 

The price she paid for Nicole’s life. 

 

Nicole who isn’t conscious yet, but whose breathing has eased to a much less strained rhythm beneath Waverly’s hands at her wrist. 

 

Nicole who is is safe, for now. 

 

Her love, who is going to be fine. 

 

She’s going to be  _ fine _ . 

 

Because there’s no other option, not one. 

 

The exhaustion settles it’s hands around Waverly’s neck as she relaxes her shoulders a little to take the strain. She closes her eyes for one minute, just one, because Nicole is safe now, she’s ok, and Waverly  _ dreams _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


“Tell me what you used to think about?”

 

Waverly’s voice is soft like silk against the dark. 

 

It’s somewhere between midnight and dawn and they’re both wide awake. 

 

They haven’t spoken in long minutes, content in the softness of each steady inhale and exhale hovering somewhere between sleep and consciousness.

 

“What do you mean, baby?” Nicole asks gently, her voice a little rough from disuse. 

 

“Before this,” Waverly says gently, and it’s born from the echo of some memory held  _ just _ out of reach that has come to her in their half-trance state. Long lost or yet to pass, Waverly isn’t sure. “Before you could touch me, but you dreamt about it. What did you think about? What did you think I’d like? What did you want to do?”

 

“To you?” Nicole asks quietly and Waverly can hear the smile on her lips as she moves towards the call of Waverly’s body. 

 

“Everything.”

  
  


-

 

Waverly wakes with the taste of Nicole’s skin and _ sweetness _ on her lips, and it takes her a moment to gather her bearings, her brain throwing her before the sweetness turns to sharp sterility and she remembers where she is. 

 

Her heart throws a dull throb through her chest before something happens and Nicole comes to life beneath her hands. 

 

Waverly is in Nicole’s arms fully before Nicole can so much as take another breath, and Waverly knows she should be more careful, but she’s alive, thank god, she’s alive, and there isn’t anything in the world more important than that.   

 

She has a thousand apologies slippery in her hands, but it doesn’t go according to plan, because nothing ever does. 

 

Because Nicole wakes and Waverly breaks in relief, but before she can explain, before she can rationalise or justify, Wynonna comes back with a beaming smile swimming in pride. 

 

The antidote is high in her hand like she’s holding the elixir of life, which she is, but to Waverly, it’s as poisonous as the toxin newly purged from Nicole’s body. 

 

Wynonna looks so proud, so beautifully proud, and Waverly’s heart shatters at the edges, brittle like old glass, and a few tiny shards pierce her chest. 

 

Wynonna looks proud and then confused, and her face  _ turns _ because she knows she has the only cure in her hands, and yet here Nicole is, obviously and incredibly cured. 

 

Wynonna looks to her, and Nicole whispers a confused  _ baby,  _ like she doesn’t understand either, and she knows Waverly does, but it’s all too much. 

 

The guilt is crushing, and the walls are closing in, and it almost kills her to leave Nicole on that bed, but she can’t turn and see that look on Wynonna’s face on hers, too. She just can’t. 

 

So she panics and she runs. 

 

“What did you do, Waverly?”

 

Wynonna’s voice is pain and betrayal, and Nicole’s trust is crippling, so she  **runs** . 

 

“What did you  _ do _ ?”

  
  


-

  
  


The price is steep. 

 

It’s  _ too _ steep, only it’s not, because it’s for Nicole, and she could never ever say it out loud, but side by side, she knows Nicole would still be her choice. 

 

But they’re not by her side. They’re not here, and she doesn’t know what to do without Nicole or Wynonna as a strength at her hip. 

 

The witch taunts; she takes Doc, and she sneers, and she  _ wishes, _ and Waverly s c r e a m s, but it doesn’t help. 

 

Everything goes  **black** . 

  
  


-

  
  


She doesn’t remember a lot from the other world, the memories like a half-forgotten dream, but she remembers Nicole. 

 

Solid and stable and beautiful and  _ there _ . 

 

She remembers the feeling of loss so heavy she couldn’t breathe when she’d held Doc’s dying body beneath her hands, and without thinking, the first person she’d called had been Nicole. 

 

Nicole who had come without question and without hesitation. Nicole who smelled of vanilla and comfort and home, who was more beautiful than a Norse god had any place being. 

 

Nicole who sits with her in the car, and  _ calms, _ and gives her  **life** because Waverly says p l e a s e. 

  
  


-

  
  


She walks out of the bar with heavily trembling hands covered in red, red,  **red** . 

 

She feels sick, because a man she’s hated her entire life died in her arms, and she’s not relieved, not even close. She feels like she’s lost a tiny part of her soul, instead. 

 

It doesn’t make any sense, none at all, because he was Doc Holliday. Doc Holiday who ruined her family's life, and killed her father, and he’s dead. He’s  _ dead, _ and Waverly should be relieved, she should be jubilant, but instead she feels broken. 

 

She’s confused and tired and on the verge of being violently ill, and she needs someone, she  _ needs _ someone, so she pulls her phone out and dials. 

 

Nicole’s voice answers on the other end before Waverly even registers which number she dialled. 

 

“Sheriff Haught,” Nicole answers, the height of professionalism, always, and Waverly can’t help but smile softly through her tears because it helps ground her. 

 

Waverly doesn’t know why the first number she dials isn’t Perry, all she knows is that’s not the person she wants. He’s not the person she  _ needs _ . 

 

“Sheriff Haught?” Waverly says shakily. “It’s Waverly Earp here. I, uh….something’s happened, and I need you. I need you to come here, I mean.”

 

She’s not sure why she says Earp and not Gibson, but she does, and she knows the significance of it is monumental, but she can’t put her finger on  _ why _ . 

 

“Waverly?” Nicole says, her voice softening immediately. “Are you ok? Are you hurt?”

 

“I’m not,” Waverly replies as clearly as she can, but it’s hard through the tears. “I’m not but someone else is. Someone’s dead, Nicole.”

 

“I’m leaving now,” Nicole says quickly and Waverly can hear her moving in the background, collecting her things hastily as her boots echo on the floor up into the receiver. “I’m leaving now, Waverly. I’ll be there before you know it, ok? Where are you?”

 

“At Shorty’s,” Waverly returns around a sob. “I’m at Shorty’s. Well, outside because  _ he’s  _ inside.”

 

“Everything’s going to be ok, Waverly,” Nicole says as she starts her car in the background of the call. “Everything’s going to be ok.”

 

_ I know, _ Waverly thinks as Nicole keeps talking to her, holding her on the line by way of a distraction.  _ I know it is _ . 

 

That’s why I called  _ you _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


Waverly isn’t sure how the blood doesn’t  _ cover _ her white dress, but it doesn’t, thank god, because she doesn’t think she’d still be standing if it did. 

 

Her hands shake harder as Nicole pulls the car over, hurrying to get herself out of the vehicle and towards Waverly. 

 

Nicole’s hands pick up Waverly’s in spite of the blood quickly drying on them, turning them over to assess them before summating that the red isn’t hers. 

 

They move carefully to Waverly’s face after, lifting her chin so,  _ so _ gently so Nicole can look her in the eye. She holds Waverly’s watery gaze for a second before she does a quick assessment of the rest of Waverly’s body. 

 

“Is this yours?” Nicole asks Waverly carefully as she takes Waverly’s hands again, unobtrusively checking over the rest of her body. 

 

“No,” Waverly says with a sob, shaking her head as she dissolves into tears again. “It’s not.”

 

“Oh, Waverly,” Nicole says softly. She opens her arms slowly, offering herself to Waverly, cautiously so as not to spook her, and subtle enough for Waverly to ignore the gesture if she doesn’t feel comfortable. “Can I….?”

 

She’s not sure what Nicole was on the verge of asking, but it doesn’t matter because Waverly nods regardless, sending heavy drops rolling quicker down her cheeks as she closes her eyes and steps into the warmth of Nicole’s body without hesitation. 

 

It sounds tragically romantic and probably woefully inappropriate because she has a fiancé, a fiancé who she’s never felt something even close to this for, but stepping into the comfort of Nicole’s arms, for Waverly, it’s like coming  _ home _ . 

 

She inhales and exhales and settles into Nicole, softening against the curve of her body, and Waverly can’t  _ not _ notice that they fit together perfectly. Nicole’s arms go around her shoulders and she draws Waverly close, and as she does, Waverly feels a weight lift, almost magically, from her shoulders. 

 

It probably looks pathetic and terribly cliche, sobbing into the Sheriff’s arms in the middle of town in a wedding dress, but Waverly has felt adrift and strung apart, always adrift her whole life, but here, in Nicole’s arms, she feels f o u n d. 

  
  


-

  
  


“Don’t you have to go in?” Waverly asks with a wet sob as Nicole guides her over and into the passenger's side of her squad car. “Don’t you have to go and see?”

 

“Backup’s comin’ to do that,” Nicole says gently, closing Waverly’s door as softly as she can before walking to her own side. 

 

She shuffles in her seat, reaching for something at her feet before she turns back to Waverly. “All I have to do is stay here with you.” 

 

“You’re sure?” Waverly asks hesitantly, because she knows Nicole needs to do her job, but she thinks it might kill her if she leaves Waverly alone. 

 

“I’m sure,” Nicole answers gently. “Super sure, Waverly. I’m right where I need to be.”

 

“Thank you,” Waverly says, smiling to Nicole in a way that she so desperately hopes conveys how much that means to her that Nicole is here with her, and not running away. “Truly, Nicole. Thank you.”

 

“Anytime, Waverly. I’m only ever a phone call away, ok?” Nicole offers as she looks across the small space between them, tilting her head in that way she does that makes Waverly want to reach for her cheek and….

 

_ Fiancé, Waverly, _ she thinks to herself as she bites her lip to stop the thought in its tracks.  _ You have a fiancé.  _

 

She does, and he’s wonderful, but he doesn’t make her feel this safe, he doesn’t make Waverly want to reach for him, ever. 

 

She doesn’t want to reach for him, and he’s not here either, because she didn’t call him. She called Nicole, and that tells her everything she needs to know. 

 

She can’t deal with that now, though, she can’t have that on her hands as well as the blood that is drying and cracking more by the minute. 

 

She twists her hands in her lap wishing desperately for a way to clean them before Nicole reaches for the object at her feet, a small first aid kit, before holding her hands out for Waverly’s. 

 

“I can help clean them up if you’d like?” Nicole asks softly. “Or if you’d prefer I didn’t touch you, you can….”

 

“No,” Waverly says quickly as she offers them to Nicole. “You can, I mean, it’s ok….if you wouldn’t mind? I don’t think I could keep my hands steady enough anyway.”

 

Nicole takes Waverly’s hands at once into her own with a gentle smile, steady and still, and the moment their skin meets,  Waverly feels like the world  **stops** . 

 

An arc of electricity jumps off her skin to Nicole’s, and they both stop and look at one another, surprised, but neither pull away, neither make so much as a hint or suggestion that they want to. 

 

Nicole looks to her a little dumbly, much like the expression Waverly imagines she is mirroring right back, before Nicole smiles shyly, the first time Waverly’s ever seen the look glance her face. 

 

Because she’s normally so strong and confident and sure, but here, now, she smiles with an aching softness and the comfort of it fills the small space around them. 

 

It travels through their hands where they’re joined, and Waverly’s whole body swells and crests with something she thinks tastes a little bit like love. 

 

Nicole is the first one to snap out of it, shaking her head lightly as she sets Waverly’s hands down on the centre console gently. 

 

Waverly watches as she takes a gauze pad, wetting it with a bottle of water in her side door before she reaches for Waverly’s hands again. 

 

Slowly and methodically, Nicole begins wiping the blood from Waverly’s palms as a shaky exhale leaves Waverly’s chest. Nicole looks to her at once, checking she’s ok to continue, before Waverly nods and she does. She’s soft and careful, dropping the gauze into its packet once it holds more red than white, swapping it out for another. 

 

She turns Waverly’s hands over and over, sure to collect every blush of red, moving between her fingers and carefully around her engagement ring. 

 

“It’s a beautiful ring,” Nicole says, not looking up to meet Waverly’s eye. “He’s a very lucky guy.”

 

“You think so?” Waverly asks, and she’s not sure if it’s a distraction tactic to stop Waverly breaking down again, but from the way a blush breaks out across Nicole’s cheeks, she’s guessing not. 

 

“I know so,” Nicole answers clear and soft. 

 

She can’t help but notice the heavy melancholy in Nicole’s voice, though, and she’s surprised to find it aches, deep in her belly, Nicole’s sadness, and Waverly feels like she needs to reach out and do something. 

 

She’s not sure how she knows what it is that has dropped Nicole’s mood, but she just  _ does _ . 

 

“You know,” Waverly says softly. “It’s made me think about a few things.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Nicole asks interested, looking up from Waverly’s hands for a moment. “Like what?”

 

“I don’t know,” Waverly says with a shrug as Nicole’s hands whisper up the inside of her wrists, catching a few stray lines of rust on her skin before she finishes her task. “That maybe Doc wasn’t a terrible man. Maybe circumstance and his own demons made him what he was. That maybe there might be a few other things I totally have the wrong idea about.”

 

“Such as?” Nicole asks, halting the machinations of her hands to give Waverly her full attention, and it feels like she’s balanced on the tip of her toes for Waverly’s answer even though they’re sitting. 

 

“This really is beautiful, too, you know,” Waverly says, ignoring Nicole’s last question before her fingers move for Nicole’s wedding band again. 

 

Her touch ghosts over the warm metal laid across Nicole’s ring finger and she  _ listens _ , smiling gently when she hears Nicole’s breath catch. 

 

“How long have you been married for?” Waverly asks, and somehow her heart already knows the answer. 

 

“I’m not,” Nicole says quickly. “I mean, I was. Briefly. But I’m not, now. I really don’t know why I’m still wearing it.”

 

“Force of habit?” Waverly questions, her breathing beautifully calm as Nicole draws circles over the pulse in her wrists with her thumbs. 

 

“Something like that,” Nicole answers with a smile. “Hey, Waverly, what did you mean before?” 

 

“She’s a lucky girl, too, you know,” Waverly says as she marvels at how well their hands fit together. “I mean, was. She  _ was _ a lucky girl. To have you.”

 

“You think so?” Nicole asks gently, the spectre of a smile hidden behind her eyes as she tilts her head again and looks to Waverly. 

 

“No,” Waverly replies easily as her vision clears for a moment and she sees a  _ flash _ . 

 

It’s a vision, a photograph of another time maybe, future or past, of Nicole sliding a small band onto  _ her _ finger as they both cry at the end of an aisle draped in white and the soft gold of a summer field, and not someone else’s. 

 

“I  _ know _ so.”

  
  


-

  
  


Waverly doesn’t remember the actual explosion, but she remembers the rush of warm air and a muffled, high pitched whine, before she falls into the darkness and, caught between worlds, she  _ dreams _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


She can taste metal and smoke on her tongue when she opens her eyes in the barn. 

 

Her ears are ringing, and she doesn’t remember where they’ve been because her memory is hanging out of reach like an interrupted dream, but that doesn’t matter, because the only thing that  _ does _ is standing across from her, covered in soot, but alive. 

 

Nicole is  _ alive.  _

 

Waverly knows they have to find Wynonna once her memories leak back into her head, and she knows that they don’t have a lot of time, but the relief at Nicole here and whole and present is almost enough to bring Waverly to her knees. 

 

Nicole gasps an apology as soon as she speaks, but Waverly doesn’t care anymore. Nothing matters beyond being able to hold Nicole’s face between her palms and feel her warmth through the thin hospital gown. 

 

Nicole is beautiful and solid and sotty, but alive. 

 

Nicole is alive. 

 

They have to go, there’s no time, and she needs to find Wynonna, but Nicole is  _ alive, _ and her fingers are between Waverly’s own, and her ribs relax slightly around her heart for the first time in days. 

  
  


-

  
  


Wynonna is ok, Wynonna is ok, Wynonna is  _ alive _ . 

 

Waverly’s hands shake as Wynonna pulls Waverly to her on the cold ground. The forgiveness is heavy in her sister’s voice, and Waverly feels like she can breathe again, but it doesn’t stop her stomach rolling, because what if things had been different. 

 

What Waverly had inherited the family mantle of sentencing her older sister to death. 

 

What if. 

 

_ What if.  _

 

She doesn’t know how she would have been able to live with herself if…. _ if _ …..

 

There isn’t time for that now, though, because the world’s only about to end. Again. 

 

Waverly’s grief at an almost tragedy will have to wait. 

  
  


-

  
  


“Nicole’s married,” Waverly says, and she knows they’re not still together,  _ that _ at least she knows, but Nicole was married,  and she never said anything , and it god, even with everything happening around then, it  _ hurts _ . 

 

“To a dude?” Wynonna asks, confused. 

 

“No, a  _ gorgeous _ lady doctor,” Waverly clarifies as she bites back tears. 

 

And it’s ok, because she knows Nicole has a past, but she’s married to the most beautiful woman Waverly has ever seen outside of Nicole herself, and it’s the first time since they  _ came back  _ that Waverly has been able to stop and take a breath, and  now that she can think, Waverly has never felt so  _ woefully _ insignificant. 

 

Insecurity is an emotion that hasn’t ever really settled across Waverly’s skin, but it does now, because Shae was beautiful, and she’s only  _ Waverly _ . 

 

“Ok well, I have eyes Waverly,” Wynonna says so matter of factly that Waverly feels her heart untwist a little. “Nicole loves you.”

 

She does, god she does, and she’s told Waverly as much, too. 

 

Nicole has chosen  _ her _ , she’s chosen Waverly over Shae the supermodel, and the reminder is just enough that Waverly feels like the can breathe again. 

 

Because Nicole has chosen Waverly. 

 

And that is  _ everything _ in the world. 

  
  


-

  
  


She’s never actually held Peacemaker before. 

 

She’s carried it, she’s tried to keep it safe from Willa, but she’s never actually  _ held _ it. She’s never aimed it with purpose. 

 

The first thing she thinks about is that it doesn’t burn her. Peacemaker is supposed to burn Revenants and it doesn’t burn her. The grip is warm, as though the weapon knows it isn’t Wynonna holding it, but it doesn’t burn hot like Waverly knows it can. 

 

It’s a strange thing, holding the gun, and Waverly knows it’s crazy, but she can almost feel its consciousness, heavy and wary in her hands. On alert. 

 

Rosita shakes as Waverly holds the weapon up to the height of her eyes, sneering like she knows Waverly can’t do anything, even if the gun doesn’t smoke hot. 

 

Her sister calls the gun though, screaming for its acquiescence, and Waverly can feel it thinking before it shakes slightly, almost reluctantly, before it heeds its master's call and the barrel glows blue. 

 

The power from the glowing light travels up the length of the weapon, through Waverly’s hands and into her heart and she pulls the trigger, because she knows there’s no other way. 

 

It fires, but nothing happens. Rosita jumps, but the bullet washes off as ash instead of sentencing Rosita to hell. 

 

“Good for you,” Rosita says as she balances the weight of her life in her hands, by way of a farewell, before she turns and leaves. 

 

Waverly wants to run after her, to bring her back and have her see justice, but Wynonna writhes on the table, calling for her now, and Waverly bends.

  
  


-

  
  


Alice Michelle is born into Waverly’s arms, and Waverly falls utterly and completely in love at first sight. 

 

She counts the little fingers and little toes, smiling, before she hands Wynonna her perfect, tiny daughter. 

 

It’s beautiful and it heals wounds she didn’t even know she had as Waverly watches her sister fall even more completely in love than she had, but it’s fleeting. 

 

Because she has to leave. 

 

Waverly collects her niece and walks away, and breaks her sister’s heart for the second time in a week. 

  
  


-

  
  


“Nicole, what am I?”

 

Her voice wavers because she’s scared. If she’d have been a Revenant, she could have dealt -- it would have been life-altering and almost certainly a death sentence -- but she would have known.  

 

But she’s not. 

 

She stands over the line of the Triangle and waits for her skin to burn, but it doesn’t. And neither does Alice’s. 

 

Nicole runs to her as soon as she knows she can, and Waverly leans heavily against the support of her body, exhausted, because she thought finally, after so long, she might have had an answer. 

 

But now she’s just as lost as ever. 

 

Or she is, until Nicole grounds her. 

 

“You, are  _ extraordinary _ .”

 

And Waverly knows she feels that in her  _ bones _ . 

 

Alice doesn’t have black blood in her tiny veins either, which means they have to do the thing Waverly’s heart is already cracking just to think about. 

 

_ It’s for the best _ , she repeats in her head as she hands the baby over to the charge of someone else.  _ It’s for the best _ . And she knows it is. She knows it’s the only way. 

The chopper blades thump over her head, matching the beat of her fractured heart, and Waverly turns in Nicole’s arms, strength utterly drained, and breaks. 

  
  


-

  
  


Waverly doesn’t know how she doesn’t collapse from strain in the hours that follow their return from the other world. 

 

Or rather, she does. 

 

And her name is Nicole. 

 

There are a million things they need to talk about, but Nicole doesn’t waver from her side, and Waverly’s mind spins at the idea that she ever thought for less than a heartbeat that this wasn’t everything she’d ever need or want for the rest of her life. 

  
  


-

  
  


Nicole smiles into the kiss as she bends down to greet Waverly, and everyone is smiling, everyone is happy, and Waverly is, too, but the victory feels hollow. 

 

Because they’ve won, for now. But at what cost. 

 

The price of her niece’s freedom is the broken hearts of her mother and father, and the price of Nicole’s life was almost her sister’s. 

 

It’s enough to make Waverly’s head spin, and the melancholy starts to claw at her neck in spite of the smile on her lips, but then she looks up. 

 

Nicole is there, Nicole is  _ there _ and alive and her hand is in Waverly’s and not Shae’s, and the clouds around her chest dissolve. 

 

Because Nicole is here, and Waverly’s heart feels  _ full,  _ and her soul feels content, and she knows, even with the dark on the horizon, that everything is going to be ok. 

  
  


-

  
  


“Oh my god,” Nicole says as she trips through her front door, her eyes falling to Waverly curled up on her couch under a blanket, reading her book. “It is  _ horrible _ out there.”

 

“It looks like it,” Waverly says with a smile as she pulls the blanket off her lap, walking over with soft, sock-covered footfalls as she helps Nicole out of her sopping coat.

 

Nicole has been heavy on her mind all afternoon, all day actually, because they’d started something this morning before she’d been called in on her day off, and Waverly has been boiling beneath her skin ever since Nicole had rolled out of bed with a mumbled apology and a hurried  _ later, I promise _ .

 

She’s been heavy on Waverly’s mind and between her thighs and she doesn’t want to waste any time now that the redhead is here and hers, finally.  

 

“Baby,” Nicole says, smirking, recognising exactly what Waverly’s doing as she takes a step back. “I’m all wet.” 

 

She’s trying to hold Waverly at an arm’s length, but Waverly isn’t having it. She moves into Nicole’s body, feeling the front of her clothes dampen immediately. 

 

“So am I,” Waverly says without preamble as her fingers start to strip Nicole more determinately. 

 

“Jesus, Wave,” Nicole utters as a shudder ripples through her body at Waverly’s words, and her hands start to move for Waverly’s clothes, too. “But, I’m….”

 

“I don’t care. I want you,” Waverly replies clearly, and she watches as Nicole drops the armour around her pretence immediately, bending to take Waverly hard against her mouth. “Besides, if you get me naked quick enough, damp clothes won’t matter.”

 

“Very true,” Nicole says as she moves for Waverly’s lips again, not satisfied with a quick kiss. “That’s sound logic, Miss Earp.”

 

“I’m  _ so _ pleased you think so,” Waverly returns, biting her lip, putting on as much of a show as she can as her hands drop wet item after wet item on the floor. 

 

Nicole’s jacket. 

 

Her belt. 

 

Shirt. 

 

Pants. 

 

“It wasn’t much fun at all being left in bed, all hot and bothered this morning, you know?” Waverly says as she watches Nicole step out of her duty trousers, her eyes hungry for bare skin. 

 

“Good thing I can make it up to you now, huh?” Nicole purrs as she backs Waverly towards the couch, and Waverly bends in her hands. 

 

The loose yoga pants and oversized sweater stretch in Nicole’s hands as she pulls them easily from Waverly’s body. 

 

She isn’t sure why, but there’s something uniquely satisfying in watching the fabric pull beneath Nicole’s hands as she removes them. Maybe it’s the show and hint of strength and  _ malleability _ Nicole is capable of.

 

A teaser of what Waverly knows they are able to wring from her body. 

 

“A  _ very _ good thing, baby,” Waverly breathes as Nicole drops them both to the couch, her hand warm and supportive at Waverly’s lower back. “Because it was so hard to have to lie there and think about everything we would have been doing if you didn’t have to go.”

 

She’s still wearing a tank over her bra when Nicole slides between her legs, but Nicole doesn’t seem to mind. She pushes the bottom of the scrap of fabric up as her lips chase her hands, and she presses kiss after kiss to Waverly’s stomach. 

 

Waverly feels bold now, with Nicole moving up her stomach, and her words fall without conscious thought as her hands wind encouragingly in Nicole’s hair. 

 

“It was  _ so _ hard not to touch myself, Nicole, but you  _ promised _ , and I wanted to wait,” Waverly says, her voice soft but heavy as Nicole pauses just beneath her breasts to breathe out a sigh against the flat of her abs. 

 

“Jesus, Waverly,” Nicole groans, and Waverly can feel how much quicker her breath comes, blowing against her own heated flesh. 

 

She takes a second to meet Waverly’s gaze up the length of her body, and Waverly almost moans herself at how deep-set the desire in Nicole’s eyes is. 

 

“All day,” Nicole breathes against her skin, punctuating her words with kisses. “All day, all I could think about was leaving you in that bed.  _ All day _ , Waverly.”

 

She slides her thumbs up underneath the hem of Waverly’s top, moving it up and over her breasts, and Waverly raises her arms, rolling her body, so Nicole can push it over her head. 

 

Her mouth goes straight to the bare skin at the swell of Waverly’s breasts as soon as it’s freed to the air, and Waverly’s breath catches when Nicole changes the softness of her kisses, nipping lightly before she sucks the skin between her teeth. 

 

Her next exhale leaves her body as a loud moan, and Waverly is infinitely thankful that they’re at Nicole’s where they can bring the walls down with their pleasure, not at the homestead trying to hide the sound from Wynonna downstairs. 

 

“I thought about you touching yourself,” Nicole says as her hands move up and over Waverly’s ribs and her tongue slides beneath the cup of her bra. “I thought about me watching you. God, I tried everything I could to get off as soon as possible and it was still hours too long to wait.”

 

“You’re here now,” Waverly replies, her smile widening as Nicole moves for her mouth hungrily. 

 

“I  _ am _ here now,” Nicole says as she ghosts her lips against Waverly’s when she breaks the kiss. “And I’m all yours.”

 

“All mine,” Waverly repeats as one of her hands threads into the hair at the base of Nicole’s neck and the other moves to her lower back, encouraging her hips forward. “For the whole night?”

 

“And tomorrow, too,” Nicole breathes suggestively as her hands move beneath the bottom of Waverly’s bra, pushing it up messily so she can press warm lips to overheated skin. “I don’t care if the town is burning down, nothing is going to take me from your bed.”

 

“Good,” Waverly says, her pulse quickening as Nicole leans down with the weight of her thigh against Waverly’s core. “Because I won’t let you go again.”

 

The invisible layer beneath her words, unintentional but very much there, makes them both shiver and pause before it trips something in them both. A reminder perhaps, of how much they both could have lost in the last few months.

 

It sears across their skin, but it doesn’t make Waverly want to pull away like heat normally does, it makes her want to move for the flame. To let it consume her instead.

 

And one look at Nicole tells her Nicole wants exactly the same thing. 

 

She comes for Waverly,  _ hard _ . 

 

So Waverly  _ gives _ as Nicole’s hands slip beneath the waist of her underwear, and, her lips against Nicole’s neck, she  _ takes _ . 

  
  


-

  
  


“Do you think you’ll love me forever?”

 

Waverly’s words are heavy with the weight of the last few days as she lays light  in Nicole’s arms. 

 

Nicole’s hair is dry from the storm now,  soft, as Waverly looks up at Nicole from her position, warm against Nicole’s chest. 

 

“I’ll love you for longer,” Nicole says easily,  as though she’s known as much for her entire life,  and Waverly sighs in the bend of her body. 

 

Her thigh shifts a little where it’s draped over Nicole’s legs, and she can feel Nicole smile, her lips against the top of Waverly’s head when she feels Waverly come into contact with her, the evidence of how easily Waverly could go another round proud against her skin. 

 

Waverly blushes, and she knows Nicole can feel it even though she can’t see it either. She doesn’t say anything, but her nails drag a little against Waverly’s scalp, a hint that she could, that she will, too. 

 

It’s nice, this peace, this heat in the quiet, because a week ago, Waverly wasn’t sure this would ever happen again, even though she desperately wanted it to, even in spite of her pain. 

 

“I feel like I’ll love you even after we die,” Waverly breathes as she shakes off the melancholy of the week,  focusing on the feeling of Nicole solid beneath her instead . “After we’re stardust, I’ll still love you. My star can sit next to your star.”

 

“You think so?” Nicole asks gen tly, and Waverly can feel her smile through her body, every point where their skin meets. 

 

“I know so,” Waverly says easily, because she does. 

 

Because nothing else in her entire life has been absolute; nothing except Nicole. 

 

Happiness came and went, but so did disappointment, too. And pain. Blank, murky grey with a few sunrises dotted in between, and then Nicole. 

 

Blinding,  _ beautiful _ light. 

 

Nicole is different. She is solid.

 

Waverly is smart, but she doesn’t know a lot in the present. She doesn’t know who she is, or who her father is, or what she’s meant to do with her future, but she knows one thing. Without a shadow of a doubt, Waverly knows that whoever or whatever she is, she is exactly where she is meant to be. 

 

Where she was  _ born _ to be. 

 

Here, in the morning curve of Nicole’s body. 

 

Nicole sighs heavily at  Waverly’s  words, like they’ve wrought a throb of pleasure from her simply by falling from Waverly’s lips, and she  rolls her fingertips over the rise and fall of Waverly’s spine, as though contemplating something. 

 

She takes a breath, and then, like magic, smoother than silk, she’s between Waverly’s thighs again. 

 

“What do you say, baby?” Nicole asks, smiling like the sun. “One more?” 

 

“Yes,” Waverly moans as her body  _ moves _ for Nicole, up and into her arms. 

 

“More.”

  
  


-

  
  


part two.

**end.**

  
  


-

**Author's Note:**

> Well? Did you like it?
> 
> This has been my baby for so long now, I'm so nervous to throw it out into the universe and for you all to read but I think I did them justice? I'd love to hear if you did enjoy it though, here or over on [tumblr](http://tigerlo.tumblr.com), and I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has here or there too.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading this, you guys have been incredible. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
> 
> Keep an eye on my tumblr, i'll pop any fic updates there, and in the meantime, I've got two pretty neat one-shots for you guys in the next few weeks as well.
> 
> x


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